I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in my life thus far. Not nearly as much as I would like, but I’ve lived in Bolivia, backpacked across Europe and have been stuck in war zones in the Middle East. The amazing thing that I always discover — and promptly forget when I leave foreign nations — is how incredibly American I am.

Every morning, I awake when the sunlight hits my clown-sized hairy hobbit feet and alerts me to the fact that it is time for another day here in dreary England. London is a foggy, rainy, cold metropolis that serves British cuisine; it leaves a lot to be desired. Yet, everyday I walk across Waterloo Bridge and over the Thames River and think about how happy I am to be here.

Despite being thousands of miles away here in England, we Hoyas abroad have been discussing the recent criticism of GU’s intellectual spirit.

Last summer when I was living in South America, I was posed a question by a young Brit with a chip on his shoulder — not coincidentally in the same place that he used to shoulder the weight of empire. He asked me in a very pleased-with-himself manner, “Do you think of England as your daddy?”

I replied, “No. More like my cousin who talks funny.”

As the lights of hundreds of cars, carrying God knows how many intoxicated New Years drivers, sped by me at 4 a.m. just a few hours after the ball dropped in Times Square, I began to think about how I had ended up in a car rushing to make a plane. Destination: my new home for the next six months, London, England.