What A Whitney Wants: September 2012

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

To me, this just describes our trip

This has been something I have been putting off for weeks. But this is my final blog post.

Firstly, I would like to share a little bit of what I have learned with the world:

1. Things always work out. It may not be in the way you wanted it to, but it WILL work out.

2. Be respectful of other cultures and put aside all prejudice and seek what other cultures have to offer. Be humble and learn.

3. Nothing good happens after midnight.

4. Obey rules. Rules are there for a reason.

5. Forget about getting fat and eat as much food as possible!

6. Trust in your gut. If you have a bad feeling, get out of there.

7. Wear good supporting shoes.

8. Pray always and leave time for scripture study.

9. Learn to laugh at the silly things instead of stressing.

10. I know you want to see everything, but don’t forget to watch where you’re walking.

11. Don’t be afraid to be rude to ward off unwanted peoples. Your safety is more important than hurting their feelings.

12. Always know exactly where your passport is. And carry an umbrella, it doubles as a weapon.

13. Walk like you own the place! Confidence is key to safety.

14. Take tons of pictures! Don’t even delete the blurry ones!

15. Enjoy it! Live life and have fun in a safe way! It is an awesome experience that you will often reflect upon. And be smart!

It's story time...

Before I end, I would like to share two stories: one that began my adventure, and one that ended it.

The morning of my interview to get into the program:

Sweating under the heat of my coat, hands burning from the cold as they tightly gripped the handlebars. Can’t be late, repeated through my mind as I booked it up to campus on my awesome purple bike. I knew I already was late. After locking up the bike with numb stubs as hands, I ran across the snowy pavement to my destination.

7 minutes late.

Breathe. Must Breathe. I sneak up to the door and try to listen over the thudding of my racing heart. The interview before me had run over! A brief victory dance followed.

I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I still had to do the interview. Thank goodness my nerves had been eaten away by my adrenaline. However, this allowed me to be myself whom I did not think was an advantage at this time. I walked out of the building severely downhearted and called my mom.

The next day at the gym, I nearly fell off the cardio machine when I saw an email that told me all my dreams would come true (basic paraphrasing). And I called my mom.

I honestly think that I was supposed to have my adrenaline pumping for that interview. I think it allowed my nerves to be calm and for me to really just be the crazy me that I am.

My last day in Europe:

Flight from Rome to London: Run to the train station to get on the shuttle? Check. Get on the plane; sit next to extremely attractive Italian boy? Check. The plane is late landing? Check. The Coach from that particular London airport to Victoria Train station is late? Check. There’s a huge accident at the main roundabout that causes an hour delay? Check. Your plane takes off in 2 hours and you have to run for your extra luggage, haul it to the tube and take about an hour of a tube ride to get to Heathrow airport? Check. Are you running like there is no tomorrow, carrying 20 lbs. on your back and dragging 70 lbs. behind you? Heck yes. You sprint through the airport with only 30 minutes until the plane leaves… you realize check-in closes an hour before…. Yeah… You didn’t eat breakfast that morning and now you can’t breathe?

You try to figure out how to get home to your family while you still can’t breathe and you are all by yourself in the middle of one of the world’s busiest airports….

You pass out….

You wake up on the floor of one of the world’s busiest airports with an AED on you and oxygen on your face surrounded by semi-cute British emergency crews.

They accidentally called in your black out as “There is an America girl dead on the floor of Heathrow Airport” and you just caused the biggest panic of the month.

And all you can say is, “I don’t have health insurance.”

They take pity on you and set you up with a ticket for the next plane out the next day. They give you a good price at a nice hotel. You roll up to the hotel in an ambulance. The cool paramedics that are now your friends escort you in. You walk into the fancy hotel, just having stepped out of the back of the ambulance, looking like a double-decker bus just ran you over with your shirt cut from them putting the AED on you.

The next day, you’re 4 hours early for your flight. You get a complementary “Sky Couch” for the long plane ride home (probably because they think you're some unstable American). And you have the best flight of your life.

Your mom never lets you go anywhere by yourself again. Check.

Does this story sound familiar to you? No? Oh wait, that’s because this kind of stuff would only happen to me. It has taken a while, but now I can properly laugh that this situation. I learned a lot and I am grateful that even though I felt that I was very alone in the world at that point, I knew that my Heavenly Father was mindful of me and that my Savior was there to comfort me.

I know that things happen for a reason, even if we wish they didn’t. But we can take that bad situation and make it into a learning experience. I know that the power of prayer gave me the strength that I needed to get through this low point of my trip. This experience has made me a more independent and a stronger individual. My testimony has grown so much because of this time I spent abroad. I love the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I’m grateful that I wasn’t actually dead on the floor of Heathrow airport… and that no one tried to do CPR on me… Even though one of the policemen was pretty cute.

How do you say “Goodbye” to the greatest, most educational time of your life? The answer that I have found is, you don’t. Even though you are not in that moment, that moment is in you. This experience will be something for me to treasure for the rest of my life. The people I shared this with will always have a meaningful place in my life. And thank you for caring enough to read about my life. Maybe I will blog again in the future!

Until next time...

Just a few of my favorite pictures.