By Taylor Corrigan

Taylor Corrigan is a senior from Iowa City, IA majoring in marketing at the University of Iowa. She is currently studying abroad on the winterim International Business Abroad program in London, England.

Today is the day, the day I leave for London for two weeks. As someone with some anxiety and multiple stomach issues, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous for this plane ride. Packing my carry-on with a gallon bag filled with all kinds of medicines helped a little to remedy my hypochondriac-worries.

This is also my first time travelling alone, yet that’s not really on my top list of worries. The “normal” worries never seem to be my priorities. People are afraid of flying, of being alone, of getting lost, losing luggage, etc. But I’m afraid that my motion sickness medicine will make me too sleepy to finish listening to the 8 or 9 podcasts I need to finish as homework for my Ethics class abroad.

Packing was interesting; luckily they gave us an extensive packing list that was super helpful. Multiple Christmas presents this year included some travelling goodies I’ve put to use. One of them being an awesome “TSA-approved Ziploc bag” that my girlfriend put together for me that included toiletries such as shampoo, facewash, dry shampoo (my savior), and a ton of other 3 oz or less bottles. I also got a brand new suitcase, it’s blue and beautiful. I like non-black suitcases so I can find it better/easily amongst a sea of black ones.

I’m leaving Chicago at 4 pm and arriving in London at 6 am, so talk about jet lag. When I arrive I have 2 ½ hours until we leave the airport for our flats so maybe I’ll spend the time walking around after sitting for about 8 hours. Then we have to meet outside our flats at 3 for an orientation, and then we have a welcome dinner at 5 pm so the plan is to sleep as much as I can on the plane, and try to stay awake all day tomorrow. We’ll see how well that goes when I have a break at the flat for five hours and will probably be dead tired.

I’m currently writing this while sitting at the gate in the terminal and it’s only about 15-20 minutes until boarding starts. I think the longest flight I’ve ever been on has been about 3 or 4 hours, and it was to the state of Washington so sitting this long will be a test. Just as I typed that my leg fell asleep so we’re off to a great start. And I never know when the last minute bathroom run should happen, I think I’ll this blog here with saying that I think this will be a great trip, it will most likely go by a lot faster than I’ll anticipate and I won’t take this opportunity for granted.