I open this final post with a mild plea for the reader to bear with me for a bit. It's hard for me to not sound overly sentimental when I look back on my experiences in London and Stratford.

For one thing, I have wanted to visit England since 5th grade, so I can literally say it was a long-time dream come true. I knew, as a graduating senior from high school, that college would be my chance to study abroad, something that attending UCLA offers in abundance. And when I first stepped into Heathrow airport and minded my first gap on the Tube, I knew that I had to make everything count.

I achieved everything I wanted on my to-do list. I visited the big sites like Piccadilly Circus and Big Ben and slipped in my geeky inclinations at Platform 9 ¾. I brought home touristy souvenirs plastered with the Union Jack, took the obligatory pictures with the red phone booths, and perfected my impression of an English accent. I even snuck over to Paris for a day — when can I ever do that again?!

But there were also things that I didn't expect to happen that happened.

I didn't think I would enjoy Shakespeare as much as I did. I think that while in a lecture hall, staring at the words on the page, everything seems so dead — just a bunch of words some guy wrote. But when you can go see it performed, not just by some high school drama class, but by the likes of the theater company at The Globe and by the Royal Shakespeare Company, you realize that Shakespeare knew what he was doing as a dramatist.

I didn't expect to meet people who I know I will stay in contact with for, at very least, the rest of my time at UCLA. On campus, you're only together for three months every quarter, only a few times a week, so you really only have a shot to talk to a few people, maybe one or two of whom you'll add on Facebook.

But when you're literally with other students in the program every day, at every meal, rooming together and visiting fabulous sites in a foreign city, a tight bond forms that can't be ignored once you're back in the States. Not only are the friends I made in England added on Facebook, but I know I'm going to see them a lot more back on campus.

And finally, I didn't expect to love London as much as I do now. I knew that I would be able to handle the crowds and the Tube and the silly currency. I knew that it would be super fun wandering around in a city hundreds of years old and catching plays every week. Basically, I knew that I would love it; I just didn't know I'd miss it this much. I miss the crowds, I miss the two-pound coin being confusingly bigger than the one-pound coin, I miss the drugstore Boots and the pubs and the drivers on the wrong side of the road. All of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have returned home as well, especially when my carry-on bag on the trip home consisted of nothing but souvenirs, including about a dozen Aero chocolate bars. But I got more out of this program than I could have ever hoped for. I'm beyond happy that I decided to commit to it. Not only did I fulfill some of my last class requirements for my major, but I did so while living in London, a place that I can confidently say is one of the greatest in the world. Not everyone can say they've done something like this. But I can, because I did, and I won't EVER forget it.

And so, as I begin to sort through the nearly 1,000 pictures I took and wait for the grades I earned in the courses to be posted, the final thing to think about is when I can return to London, even if just for a vacation. Because as exciting as it is to say I've already been, I really can't wait until I can say that I'm going back.