By Stephanie Fosnight
I can barely believe it's been five months since that sunny Thursday of August 30, 2007. That's the day my great adventure began, and it couldn’t have been more auspicious.
I walked along the sturdy streets of downtown Chicago, gazing fondly at the city I’d learned to call home over the last five years. I paused a moment to drink in my fill of this place, greedily taking in the glittering Chicago River before me. A mighty steel bridge crossed the bright waters and, beyond, historic skyscrapers rose in proud tiers, reminding me of the assorted architecture tours I’d taken since arriving in Chicago as a grad student five years earlier.
“It’s amazing being here, instead of at work!” I thought.
Then came my great epiphany—I didn’t ever have to go to work again, not to that same job, anyway. I’d greatly enjoyed the job where I’d spent the last four years, and I’d made the decision to leave with eyes wide open and the spirit of adventurer, but on this day, two days before I departed, I finally understood that all that was normal was gone. This trip to downtown Chicago to tie up some loose ends was the last I’d make for a long time. For in just a few days I’d be boarding a plane and moving across the Atlantic to spend a year doing volunteer work for a church deep in the heart of Nottinghamshire County, England.
I suddenly had freedom from the monotony of doing the same thing everyday. But that freedom was dizzying! Did I want it, after all?
I made a frantic phone call to my mom, who reminded me that it was too late to change my mind now.
“Just go to your appointment,” she said. “Then go home and pack, then get on that plane. Before long you’ll find your sense of direction again.”
So I went to my appointment. I ate at the Billy Goat restaurant. I bought a pictorial history of Chicago as a gift for the as-yet-unknown family who’d be housing me in England. Then I went home and packed, somehow managing to cram almost an entire apartment into boxes within the space of a day.
On Sept. 2, I arrived bleary-eyed at Heathrow and muscled a laden luggage trolley through the crowds as I searched for Nikhita, a journalist friend and Londoner who’d promised to pick me up.
I couldn’t find Nikhita and, since I was now bereft of a cell phone, found my way to one of those old-fashioned contraptions called a telephone booth. It turned out the coins I’d prepared myself with were Canadian, not English, but luckily the machine also took credit cards (although I later discovered that I’d been charged $4.73 for my two minute call).
But at last Nikhita and I found each other, packed up the boot of her little car and were motoring down the curving, ancient streets of London on the way to her flat.
Chicago was far behind. I was in England now, for better or for worse. Yet the moment the plane touched down I felt nothing but joy. Panic was a dim memory, felt somewhere back there by the Merchandise Mart, for I knew now that I’d come to exactly the right place.
Steph ... what a terrific surprise to pick up the Sun-Times this morning! I'm excited for you and your adventure -- and now I've got your blog address.
I hope this continues to be as much fun as it's seems to have been so far ....
cheers,
Jon Ziomek
Thanks, Jon! This is already so much fun. My English housemate got to hear my exuberant cheers last night when I saw the online story and the blog comments. And all he wanted to do was watch CSI ...