Dear London,

I know I wear my heart on my sleeve, it’s just how I’ve always been and I make no effort to stop it from bleeding out of me on a daily basis, which also means that I’ve fallen for you in just a matter of six weeks.

I found myself walking to the tube on my last day asking you to give me something to hold on to, something to remember you by. But, in fact, you have given me too many things to keep; I am filled to the brim and if I stayed any longer I might burst (in the best way possible).

You’ve been the foundation of unexplainable change, seeing me through six weeks of firsts. You gave me the grounds to build my own way and the independence to take on whatever was thrown at me.

Looking back, I am reminded of the suffocation I felt during the late hours of those first seven sleeps. Now my breath is taken away at any given hour as I wander through this unwritten book of travels…

I have noticed how much I love different styles of architecture, as memorizing my walks through your curved streets has brought my eyes to the detail of your buildings for both directional and admirable purposes.

My multiple personalities have been given free-range, releasing them from the confines that were self-constructed out of the perceived expectations in my former society (One I am not likely to return to ever return to as a full-time member).

Walking has taken on a new purpose, being both an easier and cheaper form of transportation as well as a time capsule for popping into a world of thought in any realm via headphones. (Not everyone here sings and skips while taking to the streets, though this is one thing that I have refrained from adopting while here)

My previous idea of breakfast has been reconstructed to include baked beans and cake and understanding what I’m consuming is no longer a worry or possibility.

Some of my most common mannerisms have been put to the test, magnified or replaced. And ultimately the 20-year-old girl who is getting on a train to Paris isn’t the same one who crossed the pond to visit you earlier this January.

I’m leaving you have never seen the changing of the guards or tasting clotted cream on a tea biscuit, and just by chance, making it on the London eye during my last remaining hours to see this typical attraction. Technically speaking there are some expected things with each city, country, or place, many of which I have not seen while with you. But these technicalities are not what fill my agenda or make my trips. They are great contributors, but they are not what my fondest memories consist of. As they say, ‘to each his own,’ and my own is nothing that can be put on paper.

About a month before I left my dad gave me a card with a pair of shoes that said ‘you are my soul mate’ on the front. Inside it said, “Riley, I love you! May your feet find all kinds of paths this next year in Europe 🙂 Love, Dad”

I love you because you were the start of these new paths, giving my longing feet a fulfilled ache at the close of each day.

I am saddened to be leaving you, and even more shocked that I have finished a third of my time abroad.

I have no doubt people can understand, or relate, but no one KNOWS. Or maybe all travelers relate on the understanding that we will never fully KNOW another’s experience.

I have danced, ate, and meandered my way through this last month and a half, putting myself out there without any pretenses. But now it is time to depart and make a new home on Rue Lacépède.

Bonjour France, je m’appelle Riley.

My French might not be perfect, nor my transforming-self complete, but petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid ~ “little by little, the bird makes its nest.”

xxx

Riley Makenna