London is great, but you can’t help feeling homesick. 

You haven’t seen your loved ones for months now.

You miss your father’s cooking.

Your brother’s laugh.

The music in your mom’s car: Juanes, Celia Cruz, Ricky Martin.

Walking down to Trafalgar Square for class in the National Gallery, you stop at a bookshop’s window plastered with posters. 

Among ads for concerts and art shows and lectures on The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - whatever that is - is an old 1980s travel poster for Florida. 

The cartoon sun warms your heart. 

You miss the sunshine of your home.

The bright citrus and even the smell of the Everglades, both pungent and sweat.

You momentarily forget that you are surrounded by concrete buildings and smoke and people rushing to their destinations instead of blue sky and palm trees. 

You’ll be home soon enough, you tell yourself as you walk away.

 As much as you miss your home, you don’t really want to leave this city just yet.

You haven’t explored every single inch of it.

You’re going to miss having class in some of the greatest museums in the world. The scones your teacher makes your buy every week. The scones your teacher doesn’t make you buy.

The smells

The sights

The art

The people.

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