After England 2008

I'm entering this post approximately one and a half years after my trip to England. I had the opportunity to re-read my posts and blogs as I got ready for my trip and my travelogue as I traveled through England.

Here are a few of my after-comments as I sit back and reflect:

1. Prior to leaving, I did some rough calculations on how many times I thought I'd be riding the train and tried to factor in my potential use to determine whether or not it was worth my money to buy my rail pass in advance or wait and buy point-to-point when I got there. I decided to buy ahead of time and I should have waited to buy point-to-point in England. I REALLY wanted to go to more places than I had the time or inclination to get to and I ended up losing money on transportation. Lesson--Factor in the fact that I might get so doggone tired that I can't drag myself to the train station to make it out of town!

2. I didn't anticipate how crowded Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum would be and I wasted some time in line and I reallly should have decided well in advance if I even wanted to go to this museum. While researching my trip, I thought it would be a nice diversion but once I got there, I realized I didn't really care if I got in or not and wasted time getting there and trying to decide if I wanted to continue to wait. Lesson--Stick with my gut feelings about whether or not I want to visit an attraction, even if all the reviews are positive and everyone tells you to go.

3. I knew there was allot to see and do in London but I really underestimated how many things there were to do and how long it would take to do everything. Lesson--Work hard at overestimating all the things I want to see and pare down according to how much time I plan on spending in the area.

Other than these few things, I've got to say this trip was an awesome experience. It was my first experience traveling overseas alone and even though I got a little homesick, I loved the experience.

Traveling alone makes me feel as though I can do just about anything! If I can get completely lost and find my way back to my hotel, if I can make my way all over London by tube, train, and bus without panic, if I can walk and walk and walk until I think my legs are going to fall off and STILL keep going, if I can do all of these things and more and do them away from my personal safety zone, then I can do anything.

And if I can do it, you can too!