Earlier today I wrote the following. “I sit 35000 feet in the air in
a chair in the sky. I will arrive in London in six hours and sixteen
minutes. Last night I looked at a goals list I had created a year ago. I
had three divided pages; a month’s goal, a decades goals, and a
twenty-five years’ goals list. The latter I realized I had written “Live
in England.” Not a year later I will be able to scratch it off the
list.
I find it daunting here. In the biggest airplane I have ever
seen.”After that my new friend Mia, who sat next to me on the trip was abruptly waken up by an older woman slamming her seat in the opposite of the upright position. I decided to relinquish my attempt at a mid-flight post. Struggling to contain my fatigue and manage my excitement for the arriving destination.
Now, I sit in my room I share with another new friend McClain. Except tonight, I share it with eight other of my classmates and fellow study abroaders. We write this blog collectively, and some better than others. (This joke I read aloud and received a decent chorus of laughter.)
We arrived in London around 10 a.m, and we were all exhausted. We took the necessary time to nap, shower, or any another necessity to feel comfortable in a place where we have never lived before. Then we embarked to learn the underground system and walked some of the more prominent touristy areas including Leicester Square, Piccadilly Alley, and others I simply cannot name not because of my lack of paying attention but more so due to an over stimulation. We walked the areas you see on the BBC and every other British based programming you have ever seen.
“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard KiplingWe wanted to experience some part of this city, this world, even a little. So that is how an hour later I found myself leading nine of us to a local pub. I being the only one with the best internet capabilities. The Mikey Reynolds Pub Crawl began, and I hope I lived up to the non-existent hype. We visited a couple pubs, incredibly out of our element and relentless in our desire to learn and experience the world.
We went to The Mabel’s Tavern, another bar whose name escapes me, and The Boot. The latter of which was the perfect atmosphere I craved. Signed soccer (football) jerseys on the wall and British accents rather than more foreign ones impossible to place, aka my kind of place. Watching a couple of my classmates learn British billards from a local English couple warmed my heart more than the English ale I was so comfortably consuming.
To want to change, and learn, and better the world through travel is an amazing thing. To be amongst a group of individuals doing the exact same thing is so much more. This is ‘Day One’ and we sit in a small hotel room in the Royal National Hotel five thousand miles from the only home we know listening to music and the echo of each other’s fingertips on the keys of our respected keyboards.
Our home isn’t a place, it’s an idea. It’s a passion. It’s the constant yearning and strive for education and creation. Here we are, trapped in the amber of our own moment we created. Artists of time and masters of our own passions.
One of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare, you know, THE William Shakespeare whom’s grave I will be visiting in less than a month’s time goes as follows;
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” -Billy ShakespeareHere we are, 12:30 a.m Greenwich Mean Time, and I realize more so than before, I am amongst a group of dreamers, and we truly, are the stuff dreams are made on.
This is only the beginning of something I don’t think I could ever, or want to forget.
Stay tuned my dear readers. This is the beginning of something special.
--Mikey Reynolds
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Read more from Mikey at https://themikeyreynoldschronicles.wordpress.com/.
Find out more about the U of A Theatre in Britain summer program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/theatreinbritain.
