“Can I give you some advice?”

The countdown has begun. T-minus 27 days until I leave for England!

To tell you the truth, at this juncture in the getting ready process there’s not much to tell. This weekend I get to go to an orientation session at my school, which will hopefully bring with it a lot more information as well as actionable advice.

One thing that there’s no shortage of right now for me is advice. Although I’m a person who normally gets annoyed if people just assume I need a lot of help, I’m surprisingly grateful for it. The big wide world of Europe is a little on the daunting side, and hearing other people’s experiences can be helpful. Along with the stories of friends and family, my school has an official list of packing tips that I’ve been poring over as the start of term approaches. (I’m also ridiculously delighted by the phrase “start of term” every time I say it. Yes, I feel like I’m going to Hogwarts. Yes, that’s very geeky. But I digress.)

For the enjoyment of those following my adventures, here’s some highlights of the pointers I’ve received as I get ready for my semester abroad.

• Don’t pack more than about two weeks worth of clothing, just wash and rewear that for the four months. I will most likely be disregarding this one.
• Don’t pack heavy books either, says the school. It’s like they don’t even know me.
• Europeans don’t wear jeans very often and they absolutely do not wear leggings. This one has been stressing me out as the better part of my wardrobe consists of jeans and leggings. My solution has been to plan to wear dresses or skirts as often as I can when I’m out and about to avoid looking too American. My more rational side knows that people will still be able to tell how American I am the second I open my mouth, but now I have an excuse to buy some new dresses and I’m sticking with it.
• It’s England. Bring rain gear. Christmas has been kind to me on this front.
• Have travel-friendly bags that will keep passports and/or wallets safe and secure. Again, Christmas came in clutch to supply me with those.
• If your bank card has a six digit PIN or a PIN that starts with zero, change it before you leave. This was something heard from a family friend whose daughter had trouble with this in England. Luckily I don’t have to change anything to follow this tip, but it’s good to know if you’re a believer in the Scout motto.
• Paris is overrated, so don’t waste your money on visiting. Another pointer that I will be cheerfully ignoring.
• In Wroxton, the teachers prefer you use the books in the library as opposed to the Internet. This one I’ve had to really try to remember, because in my excitement to be seeing a whole new continent I keep forgetting that it’s called study abroad, with study being the operative part of the phrase. Paris and Rome might be calling my name, but there will likely be an essay shouting just a little louder than them. The Wroxton library is beautiful, so you’ll get no complaints from me about this, but it’s also been many a year since I looked something up in a reference book as opposed to just Googling it, so we’ll see how it goes.
• The only pizza places there are chains like Domino’s, but if you think of it as more of a cheesy bread and not as pizza, it’ll be easier to stomach when there’s nothing else for dinner. I find this idea pretty dubious, even with it coming from a very trusted source. Either way, it’s unlikely I’ll ever need to use this attitude adjustment because I’d only eat pizza from Domino’s when every last pizza joint in New Jersey has gone up in flames. It’s going to be a long four months of pepperoni cravings, though.
• Get used to military time, since that’s what they use the most in Europe. I’m not excited about this one, even though I’m pretty sure it’s true and I’ll mess up a train schedule at some point if I don’t pay attention. That said, I can’t imagine anyone who’s not a Marine actually saying “fifteen hundred” as opposed to three o’clock, so I’m hoping it won’t be that stark of a transition.

Even in the midst of all these preparations, it’s not quite feeling real for me yet that I’m going to be gone for an entire semester. I suppose it’s a side effect of youth that I can’t fully see past the next thirty days of going to work and getting ready. Some days it feels like I’ll just be getting ready for the foreseeable future and never actually arriving at the thing I’m getting ready for. I know that the second I’m on the plane, this entire month of January is going to feel like a blip, and in the years to come I probably won’t even be able to remember the details of it in the shadow of the trip itself, but right now it all seems like diners and dishrags and writing bits of advice down for later use. I’m so ready to rush ahead to my departure date and start the adventure, but I’m taking this time to be grateful for the familiar. Home and my family, routine, always knowing how to get wherever I want to go, not needing to worry about speaking a different language, Taylor ham and really good pizza. These are the things I know I’m going to miss when I’m without them for four months, so I know well enough to savor them now while I have the chance.

That’s all for now! More to come as January 31st gets closer.