Dear England,

Dear England,

I wanted to write you a farewell letter because I am leaving in under two weeks after an entire year and it felt appropriate. I wanted to thank you for accepting me with open arms despite any reservations you might have had that I was an American. I want to thank you for only rarely raising your eyebrows at me and for politely correcting me when I pronounced aluminum incorrectly. I want to thank you for the occasional blue skies amid all the grey that made me feel less boxed in and a little closer to home. I also want to thank you for the two thunderstorms which you showed me and suggest you try them more often.

I want to thank you for allowing me, as a full time student, to take advantage of your socialized medical program, because back home I never would have been able to afford my treatment. Though I have been told that it was very likely the cold weather which I was not used to and the stress from my University course that put in my that position in the first place. I may never forgive you for the nightmares I still have from the painkillers you refused to give me during the “simple” procedure, but I thank you for the kindness I received from the overall staff and the treatment that despite its pain and inconvenience made me well again.

England, I also want to thank you for the friends I have made this year. Many of them call you home and you have fostered them and turned them into the shining and warm individuals that they are. They made me feel welcome and sometimes, even if only for a moment, made me feel like I was home. I will miss the poker games and the drunken philosophizing over rules, the probabilities and the life we shared with each other this year. Some of the other friends I made this year were strangers to your shores just like I was, and I thank you for welcoming them with the same open arms you welcomed me with. With them around I was able to make sense of the differences I saw in you and learn about the similarities I share with you and the other countries where my new friends are from.

I want to thank you for a year of good beer and bad wine. England, you will never be able to make a good doughnut or a proper bagel but I will miss lemon curd and “spotted-dick” dessert as well as your near endless supply of quality organic-fair trade-chocolate.

I will miss the old buildings, the old streets, the old monuments and statues which have silently watched generations pass and will remain long after I send this letter to inspire with their ancient stories and remind us of people we otherwise may have forgotten. I will miss London with its buzz and whirl and many other cities which I have visited for to short a time. In short, England I will miss you, but I am glad to be going home.

Good bye for now,
Sarah