Jane Austen's Home



"Everyone likes to go their own
way- to choose their own times and
manner of devotion." - Jane Austen

I arrived in Chawton in a way only Elizabeth Bennett would have approved of. While it wasn’t my petticoat six inches deep in mud, my jeans and boots were covered with dirt, grass and burnt out cigarettes that were discarded along the highway. I was visiting Chawton to see an old friend and by old friend I mean an author born in 1775 whom I’ve read all her novels at least twice over. Currently, I am taking a Jane Austen Seminar at Harlaxton College and this trip was part of a project for the class. Although I would have went to visit Miss Austen’s home even if it was not required.



"We have all a better guide in
ourselves, if we would attend to it, than
any other person can be." - Jane Austen

To get to Chawton, I had to take the London Underground  to Waterloo Train Station and find my way to town which was a three mile walk from Alton Train Station. I did all of this alone. While this may seem like a very scary situation, it wasn't and at parts it was. Like when there was a fight between two men on my train or when my phone died and I had to make it through the London Underground without any contact with my friends. But that's why you come to study abroad; to take trips to new places and to realize you are much more capable than the rest of the world would like you to believe.

 

"She had a lively, playful
disposition and delighted in everything
ridiculous." - Jane Austen

The point of being abroad is to do something that you aren't use to, to be uncomfortable and even make yourself frightened, but this also brings a different kind of joy. Joy that cannot be expressed by mere words. If we all stayed in our dorm rooms and did nothing you may as well have stayed in America. Don't be weary to travel alone or break away from the friends who have come abroad with you because you'll find you ARE able to survive the London streets, learn how to use a compass and find a new part of yourself that you hadn't the slightest idea existed.

 

Written by: Skylar Plummer