Welcome to London!

After months of planning and hours of travelling, I am finally here in London! I got here around 2pm London time on Saturday (yesterday), and I've spent almost the entire time moving in, going to orientations, shopping for necessities (like the proper converter to plug in my computer), and figuring out a bit about how my life will be working for the next eight weeks.

I have actually been a little overwhelmed. I didn't expect to be because I've travelled to Europe before, and England was by far the easiest place to navigate (primarily because everyone speaks English but also because the culture is most similar to American culture). So I thought anyone who talks about having culture shock when going to England must be pretty sheltered. But there actually was a little bit of that for me. For example, I had to throw away my full tube of toothpaste at the Minneapolis airport because my bag was over 50 pounds, and I didn't know where I could find toothpaste here. It's not like England has Target stores! It's a lot more difficult to move to a place like England than it is to just travel around it. And I do feel like I've moved in here; I unpacked all my stuff just like I always did for college.

Even more overwhelming than the "culture shock," however, is meeting a ton of new people at once. When I was at the dude ranch in Colorado, I had a blast getting to know two young women about my age and the rest of the guests at the ranch. It's much easier for me to get to know a few people at a time and to be able to have good conversations with them than it is for me to be thrown into a situation where there are over a hundred people all milling around and meeting one another. Not that I am unable to deal with situations like the latter, obviously; it's not my "cup of tea."

I'm also getting nervous about starting a new job! I'm excited to have such an interesting position, but it's always a bit difficult to start a new job just because everything is so unknown. I'll be doing a publishing/editing/writing internship with Goodlife Media, a company that produces two magazines: London Hotel and Goodlife Magazine. The first magazine is placed in every 4- and 5-star hotel in the London area and is therefore geared toward tourists. The other one is delivered to wealthy West End London residents. I'm really excited to get to learn how a print magazine is produced, but the topic (wealthy, elite culture) would not have been my first choice. However, it should be really fun to get to learn more about the uppercrust's lifestyle that I would probably never get to experience otherwise.

Of course, I don't want to sound like I am complaining or upset in this blog post. Yes, things have been a bit harder than I expected. Dreams, when fulfilled, are always more nitty gritty than they were when they were just whisps of hope. I am so grateful for this opportunity, and I can't wait to drink it all in!