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It never really hit me that I was going to be spending ten weeks in a foreign country with 45 people I didn't know, and even as we come to the end of our first long day it still hasn't. On the coach up to Heathrow as I was taking in the last bit of English countryside that I would see for a long time I was trying to work out what I was actually feeling about the situation. Part of me was relieved that I would be leaving behind the hassles and tedium of everyday life in Bristol, part of me was wondering how well I would cope outside of my comfort zone away from all the people who know me and accept me but I think the biggest part of me was resigned to the fact that whatever happened I would just have to deal with it and make the best of it and hopefully the experiences whether good or bad would make me stronger.
It's a point in my life now where I feel I have to start making decisions that will affect the rest of my life and applying for P2 was the first one of many that I hope to make. The last 5 years have been a blur of partying and whilst I had loads of fun and created memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life, the lifestyle I used to love has turned into something potentially quite dangerous and the time has come now to decide whether I want to leave that period of my life in the past and move forward onto more fulfilling things or carry on as I am and not really go anywhere. In the optimistic naivety of my teenage years I used to think everything would fall in to place as I got older but now I realise you have to make the changes yourself and whilst opportunities may fall into your lap if you're lucky, if you actively seek such opportunities, you're more likely to find them and consequently benefit from them.
I woke up on the coach just before we arrived at Heathrow to some strange weather. The sky on the left was grey and stormy whist the sky on the right was clear blue and sunny. Dissecting both sides in a vivid technicolour arc was the biggest rainbow I had ever seen and we seemed to be driving straight towards the centre of it. I couldn't have imagined a better meteorological representation for how I was feeling.
When I arrived at Heathrow most of the group was there already and it was strange looking around at the faces thinking how familiar these people were going to become in the following weeks. I could read a lot of different emotion registering on people's faces but no-one seemed to be too nervous or over- excited. Talking to people later on many said that, like me, they felt strangely emotionless and I think most of this was due to the insane amount of hours everyone had spent in transit.
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