A Love Letter to England

My dearest England,

Wow, where to begin? This past month has been incredible. I've lived out my dream, and you were everything I've ever hoped you would be.

Thanks for all of the Moo-Moo's milkshakes and Ben's cookies. Thanks for teaching me that fries are chips and chips are crisps. Thanks for letting me not die as I crossed the streets. Thanks for helping me fall back in love with London during that lovely bike tour. Thanks for letting me bust out my acid yellow rain slicker, and thanks for the saltwater tan on my feet. Thanks for all of the good hair days. Thanks for the late night G&D's runs and spotty wifi that let me FaceTime my family and Skype my best friend. Thanks for the brilliant professors who taught me more about photography than I ever knew I wanted to know and confirmed my sneaking suspicion that English is the absolute perfect major for me. Thanks for the sheep on the hillsides and the ducks by the river that didn't attack me during our readings of Hamlet. Thanks for the people I've met and the friends I've made that I would never have talked to otherwise. Thanks for reminding me to be present and there and so enamored with my surroundings that I forget to check my phone. Thanks for the markets and the long bus rides to London that let us all nap. Thanks for the early morning running club and pain au chocolat for breakfast every morning. Thanks for the collection of empty water bottles on my desk and that epic penguin dive during ice skating. Thanks for the bustling markets and the greasy food and the hypnotist.

But above all, thanks for letting me be myself. Thanks for giving me the courage to become the girl with the camera, the girl who enjoys her assignments, the girl who likes castles and markets and museums more than shopping. Thanks for the courage to start writing again, to really explore what I can do with a camera, to experiment with being away from home. Thanks for letting me discover the person I want to be, and for showing me that that girl is just as fun as I've been hoping. England, I love you with all my heart. A piece of you will always be home.

Sincerely, mad