over the pond.

We only really booked Chicago out of convenience, flights from California and Pennsylvania both being affordable, we would have met up in Kansas if it had been the only cost-effective option, but I think Chicago surprised us both. Huge and full of character, it felt at once both familiar and completely different.

We stayed in an airbnb room the size of the double bed and, despite its... compact size, it was a great base. The apartment was a short walk to Wicker Park, a gorgeous "hip" red brick area filled to the brim with second hand stores, winding bookshops and restaurants. As we had to walk to the subway station to get into center city anyway, it became the perfect food stop en route to the loop.

Adam and I travel together well, we move at the same pace, we want to explore the places we visit and see everything both of us wish to see, but we try to take it slowly, getting up late, properly stopping and sitting down when we eat, taking time to sit and talk at the top of Chicago 360 or at the side of Lake Michigan. And as we each contribute our ideas to our itinerary, we find ourselves doing things we wouldn't have naturally chosen to do but are very glad we did!

This trip, I found a stripped back, "black box", local theater performance of Pygmalion for $5 a ticket, so we ended up in this rented art space in the middle of a residential area, two of around fifteen audience members watching this show. As a big fan of the play, I was in my element, and was incredibly impressed by the (mostly) decent british accents. And Adam enjoyed it a lot too, it was an experience he wouldn't have chosen for himself, but it was a fun way to spend an evening! Adam, too, found tickets for us, this time going to see the Chicago White Sox playing baseball for $7. I haven't been to see any sports games at Lehigh, partly because they always seemed to be on the days I already had plans, but partly because I've never been too bothered. I wouldn't have ever thought of going to see a game in Chicago, and I definitely wouldn't have thought that tickets would be that reasonable. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy myself at the game, huddling up in the cold as my new team won, eating tater tot nachos with nauseating cheese sauce, but we caught the sunset over the city from the stadium just as we arrived, and got to experience the beautiful skyline at night as we left. Whilst Adam's choice was more glamorous, I love how we both benefit from experiencing the things the other loves and is interested in.

And it was just lovely to explore a new city together, to learn to navigate the overground subway system (infinitely better than New York), wander along the river, and take endless pictures of the infamous Bean. It has made me ridiculously excited for the cross-country trip we are currently planning for three weeks (?!) time! Now to actually start booking things....

















*Disclaimer* Don't let the turtlenecks fool you, it was actually in the mid twenties with a light breeze for most of the trip!

It's coming to the end of my year abroad, and as I spend my time researching the cheapest ways to send all the things I've accumulated back home and trying to plan a trip from San Francisco to New Orleans, it seems only right to start to arrange my thoughts and feelings on my time in the states.

It's funny now, but before I left I had a very clear vision of who I thought I'd be in America. This girl would be tanned and confident, long beautiful hair curling down her toned back, twirling between football games and frat parties, loved and adored because of her "cute british accent", but somehow seamlessly fitting into American life. She was an amalgamation of Emma Watson and Naomi Clark, a bubbly and beautiful Sarah 2.0. Well, you can guess how that turned out.

America is, at the end of the day, just a country. And American college is just university with a different name. And Sarah in America is, well, the same girl she always has been.

Knowing what I know now of the social structures of American college and the obsessive need for college students to be in a strict group, be it a sports team or a frat, it seems ludicrous that I ever thought that I would be someone who would suit greek life.

And I know several British exchange students who have spent this past year in the US, girls who have become pseudo-American, exclaiming their love for the states endlessly on social media, assimilating the sorority girl poses and smiling at the ground in candidly posed instagram photos. And there is nothing wrong with that at all, for some people, that has been the perfect way to experience America, in short because that is how a lot of American kids experience America. But it was never going to be my experience.  It was never something that would suit me.

For all the red cup party perfection of American high school movies, I don't really see America as exceptional. Not that it is bad, it is has its flaws as all countries do, some more blatant than others, but rather it is not, as a girl once said in my American studies class back at Kent, "just so much bigger and better than England". It is different. And it has been interesting to start to understand that difference rather than hold it up to such inflated standards.

For me, coming to America was about immersing myself in another culture and seeing what life was really like beyond grinning photos at the top of the Empire State Building and meandering through a sunlit Central Park. I moved to Pennsylvania, a small, once prosperous, industrial town split down the middle and divided between students and locals. There are many things I have learnt and observed and experienced since moving to Bethlehem, and most of them lie beneath the sheen of glamorous college parties and sun kissed road trips.

For some reason, when I first pictured my time at Lehigh, things like writing and politics didn't really come into it. But these things, so important to me back in the UK, are also important to me here.

America is a country in flux. There is a restlessness and an itch for something different. The stale family politics, the oppressive systems that dictate the way people communicate and understand each other, that dictate the paths that people must take, the gap between those with and those without, seen clearly in my little town, the dissonance between the idea of America- freedom and unity- and its reality. There are conversations being had that I feel privileged to be a part of surrounding the plausibility of fixing the system or looking outside the capitalist structures currently in place. Following the campaigning and the primaries this year, seeing the comparisons and differences between candidates here and back in the UK who are promising real change, has been fascinating. The world is stirring, things are being stretched and challenged and examined.

In my classes, I have been a part of discussions on the stigmatisation of mental health and the dire implications of the private health care service available here, I am currently taking a class that looks at the history of the #blacklivesmatter movement and the hidden injustice facing people of colour in the US and back home in England, structural oppression mislabeled as a cultural issue.

Whilst I have enjoyed travelling to new cities and places, indulging in the privilege that has brought me to America for a year without financial implications, I feel like I have learnt so much more about the world than just how to navigate Philadelphia.

As I prepare to leave, I do not worry about sentimentally missing America. I know it is somewhere that I have enjoyed living, somewhere that I have made great friends and had great adventures exploring. But if I miss anything, it will be the conversations with classmates and cafe staff and my pastor at church, conversations that have taught me so much. But I won't leave them here in Bethlehem, I hope to continue them over the pond, watching and hopefully participating in the changes coming.

I did not become the girl I hoped I would when I came to America, I am not any more tanned or any taller, I do not have a plethora of frat boys' numbers in my phone or the perfect selfie in front of an American flag. And I am more than happy about it.

And I think its pretty apt that I still haven't been to a party with red cups.

After an eleven hour overnight bus ride from Philly to Toronto and a few days hanging out with my Canadian family in Mississauga, we all piled into cars and wound our way into the Canadian wilderness until we got to this magnificent cabin where we spent Christmas.


Ever since I started planning my year abroad I knew that I wanted to come up to Canada and spend some time with the little branch of my family in Toronto, and the thought of spending Christmas in my uncle's hand built cabin in the snow was just too good to miss. As you can see, there was no snow! However, it was actually lovely to have warm weather and to see some colour in the beautiful Canadian wilderness. It made deep frying the turkey on Christmas day all the more bearable when it was above freezing!

I loved spending Christmas surrounded by my family, but in such a different way to how we usually celebrate in the UK. We still opened presents, decorated the cabin with lights and adorned it with a hand cut tree, ate turkey and brussel sprouts, but everything was relaxed, there were nowhere to go, no one else to see, nothing we had to do. We ate and drank and chatted and no one judged me when I went for a nap in the middle of the afternoon! (Though we never judge my mother for napping on Christmas day back home either!)

It was interesting to spend Christmas with family as an adult, even if my six year old cousin did heavily judge my colouring ability and tell me that I should practice "so that I get it in the lines". It was fun to get to know my aunt and uncle on an adult level and just talk about life, both mine and theirs. As a child you constantly get asked about what you are doing, how your piano lessons are going, whether you had fun on that trip to the zoo, but you barely ever learn about the adult who is asking the questions. It was great to see a glimpse into their lives in Canada that I only see a couple of photos of on facebook. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to come visit!





The cabin itself is located in Maple Leaf, close to Maynooth, and it is breathtakingly stunning. I remember from my last trip to Canada way back when I was 13 how beautiful the landscape was, and even in the barren winter it really is amazing. On the land surrounding the cabin there is an active beaver dam and it was fun to spot all the signs of beaver activity and follow the path of destruction down to the water.








And I finally found somewhere that my dungarees fit in! I looked just like a local in my docs and denim, I was just missing the bright hunter orange hat and camo!



I loved the drives, I loved the rolling, gorgeous scenery, the evergreen trees and the semi-frozen lakes that could be seen through the branches. It really was something else.










It was everything I wanted and needed, to go away with such great company and unplug from the internet, stop showering and wearing makeup and just be. The end of the semester at Lehigh got pretty crazy with deadlines and life, so it was perfect just to retreat into the wild with old family but new friends. Thank you for letting me stay guys!

Right before leaving for Philly, one of my American friends was telling me stories from all his solo travelling, crazy circumstances that somehow slotted together for memorable and unexpected experiences, and I told him how I just didn't think that I was one of those people, that I plan too much and live far too safely to ever have something like that happen to me, even if I was travelling on my own. Then I went to Philadelphia.

I originally planned on writing a neat little post about all the things I did and saw, but I couldn't write it without feeling fake. So instead I present you with a long and honest ramble about my sojourn in the city.

I have wanted to travel solo for a very, very long time, but despite all the millions of trips I have planned and ventured on, I have never been on my own. This little trip was a recce, a (not so) free trial before I chose to upgrade to full Solo Explorer. And in the days before I went I was excited to finally go, but also incredibly nervous, worried that I had built up the idea of travelling alone in my mind so much so that anything less than amazing would be a disappointment.

The minute I stepped off the bus into the big, grey city of Philadelphia I was convinced that I had made a terrible mistake. Was I really just going to wander around aimlessly for two days with nothing but my own thoughts whirling round and round my head? I held onto the fact that I was there for a purpose, I was going to see Dead and Company, and no matter how awful the rest of my trip was, I would at least have that.

So I set off exploring, meandering my way around Chinatown and Reading Terminal Market before trekking over to the Museum of Art to get an iconic photo of the "Rocky" steps which, ironically, mean absolutely nothing to me as I have never watched any of the films. From there I walked along the Schuylkill river, and, sitting on the bank, I contemplated my trip so far. I had been in Philadelphia for just three hours, walked about four miles through dreary streets, and was now sat on my own looking out over a miserable grey river. I wasn't entirely sure why I was there or whether I liked cities or being on my own all that much at all. My internet wasn't working, so my navigation skills were being stretched to the extreme, the sky was dark but the weather was weirdly warm and sticky and it felt like I was going through the motions, getting the photos so that I could say that I did this great trip to Philly. Why was I actually there? One of the reasons why I had always wanted to travel on my own was so that I, selfishly, didn't have to do all the things that I didn't actually want to do but felt obliged to do, but yet here I was in Philadelphia and I had gone straight to the top places on trip advisor, found the perfect place to take a selfie for instagram and seen the sites that I felt obliged to see.

I decided to go and find my hostel so that I could check in and do some of the work that I missed out on by skipping my classes, so I wrestled with my phone until I found the route and set off on the hour walk back across the city. The streets felt more familiar as I wandered around a second time, the city a little more approachable and friendly, and I was determined to try and enjoy my trip. After I checked into the hostel, I went straight to the dorm to find a bed, do some work and use the wifi to plan my route to the Wells Fargo Center. I walked in and a girl looked up from her bed and said a quick 'Hi' with a smile, and I mumbled something awkwardly in reply, staring at the floor. As I started to unpack I was kicking myself, why was I so awkward and useless at social interaction?

After sorting out a lock and pretending to work on my assignment, a new girl came into the dorm clutching a multitude of bags and smiled at me. Determined to do better this time, I started to talk to her about her trip, just mundane things about how long she was staying and where she had been and what her life was back home, and I found out that she had ran the New York marathon and was now on her way down to Miami to meet up with friends before flying out to California. She was easy to talk to and seemed genuinely interested in my year abroad, and it was just so nice to be able to share the things that I had done that day and that I was going to do and laugh about silly differences between here and England. I almost wished that I was able to go on the bar crawl, and felt for the first time how fun it would be to get fully absorbed into hostel life. But, alas, I had a concert to attend, so I wished her good luck with her trip and left to go find food and to take the subway to the gig venue.

Although it was early, I thought I'd save myself the stress of the subway and go to the venue first and then get some food once I got there. I plugged in my music, listening to John Mayer to get me in the mood, and managed to get there way ahead of schedule and got into line with the rest of the crowd. Looking around, I knew that I had got myself into something special. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was wearing tie dye, a lot of women wore swirling long skirts and children were decked in tulle and floral head pieces. Those who had chosen more somber attire wore Grateful Dead tshirts from various eras, I felt pretty out of place in my leather jacket and jeans. The queue stretched around the building and it was still a long time until the concert started, so I stood there on my own with my headphones in, very aware of how alone I was. Waiting around is never fun without friends to talk to, joke with or moan to about how long you have been waiting.

Someone came up to my section of the queue and asked a question, so I took my headphones out and turned to the guy behind me and shrugged. In the most cliche sounding way, that one tiny interaction changed my entire night. The man in question was on his own, about my age, ridiculously tall, wearing a Dead and Company tshirt, and he asked me if I had ever been to a Grateful Dead show before. I explained how I was studying over in the states for a year, saw they had a show in Philadelphia and decided to come down as I only lived in Bethlehem. Suddenly, he got really excited and it turns out that he also lives in Bethlehem and is studying for his masters at Moravian, which is the other college in our town!

We started talking and he told me that he had been to see Dead and Company earlier in the week at Madison Square Gardens and that they were really good and how much he loved John Mayer. It was nice to find someone to talk to and fill the time in the queue with, but I realised that once we got into the venue I probably would never see him again. Then, as we started moving, he asked me where my seat was and I told him it was one of the cheapest, behind the stage, right at the back. Out of the blue he offered me his spare ticket in the eighth row! It turns out that his brother was supposed to come with him but couldn't make it and he couldn't find anyone else to drag along, so did I want it? I didn't want to be too enthusiastic, so I played it cool and told him that if he was sure then I suppose I would take it...

All of a sudden I had a friend, albeit one that I didn't really know anything about, and we ate together, watching a surprisingly good Grateful Dead covers band, chatted about life in Bethlehem, the crazy outfits everyone was wearing, university and anything we could think of really, before going into the arena and enjoying the awesome show. Some people have asked me since why I trusted him, but somehow I just knew he was a good guy. We ended up taking it in turns to buy rounds and danced along to all the songs that we didn't actually know any of the words to, every so often turning to each other and fangirling about how close we were to the stage and how we could even see John Mayer's fingers moving! The tickets were way better than either of us thought they would be, directly stage left of the band, with the perfect view. We chatted and joked with all the people around us about how amazing the band were and how great John Mayer was. He offered to drive me back to Bethlehem at the end, but I explained that I was staying in Philadelphia, so we parted at the subway station and, though I doubt I will ever see him again, I was so glad to have someone to share the experience with.

The gig itself was unlike anything I have ever seen. I have seen John Mayer play twice before, but the atmosphere at Dead and Company was on another level. Everyone was standing up from the very first song, and it felt like we were back in the seventies, smoke swirling around the stadium as everyone danced and swayed sometimes in time and sometimes out of time to the music. And somehow I just didn't care that I didn't know any of the songs. I have been listening to so many in preparation, but somehow I managed to miss all but one of the songs they actually played. But the band were just incredible, the solos insane, the chemistry between John Mayer and the remaining Grateful Dead members was electric. My favourite song was Casey Jones, which they ended the first set on, and I have been listening to it on repeat since then.

On Friday, after dragging myself out of bed hungover and checking out just in the nick of time, I decided to do exactly what I wanted, so I went to South Street and ate cheap diner food, went shopping on Chestnut Street for hours, got another piercing (don't worry, Mum, it's not an exciting one, just another hole in my right ear) and had an hour long massage in Chinatown. It wasn't glamorous or historic or particularly photo worthy, but it was fun. Philadelphia slowly started to feel like my sort of city. I caught the bus back in the evening and I felt so happy that I went, ready to try backpacking on my own and embrace hostel life and the crazy experiences it brings, and glad that this year has given me the opportunity to try the things I've always wanted to try.

My trip was only two days, but I think I now realise why people travel on their own and why I want to travel solo in the future. In all my self absorbed lamentations of loneliness as I rambled around the city, I managed to confuse being on my own for being alone. I was never alone, I was in a city surrounded by people, people just like me with places to be and stories to tell who might be just as relieved as me to have someone smile at them or laugh with them about the subway system or sit with them at a concert. Travelling solo forces you to open yourself up to people, to make connections with people you would never have thought you would connect with, to share experiences with those around you. It's simultaneously entirely selfish and entirely selfless. And I'm glad I didn't give up at the riverside at the first hurdle. This post has been long and rambling and I'm pretty sure my point got lost somewhere along the way, but I wanted to write it anyway. I wanted to share it with you, just as I am learning to share my experiences with those I meet on the way.

Until next time, Philly.