Soon I will traveling to England to study at Edge Hill University for the fall semester. Edge Hill is located in a town called Ormskirk, and needless to say, I am extremely excited to be going there. In less than a week I will be in the UK and lately I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for the next three months.

Things I've been trying to remember about England:

Biscuits in America are scones in England.

Biscuits in England are sort of like cookies, only they aren't cookies, because contrary to popular belief they have actual cookies, which aren't biscuits. Got it? Me too.

"Pants" is equal to underwear, which makes saying "Oh, hello. Can you wait a second, I'm not wearing any pants" on the phone a significantly different conversation. Ultimately, words may be similar but they may have completely dissimilar definitions. My English friends from work taught me this much.

It rains. Apparently it rains a lot. Not always, but often. And it does not snow as much as Charles Dickens and Masterpiece Theatre would have you believe. This to me has been one of the most startling realizations I've come across. I would love for England to be all blanketed in snow as it is in The Holiday. How else would one expect to come across such a handsomely dressed Jude Law?

There are only two flavors of Pop Tarts. Disappointing, yes, but one must remember that this is a wholly different country that is 3,000 miles away. Pop Tart importation is not a top priority.

In the end I am trying to prepare myself to meet the real England, not the England of my dreams. This notion can be strange for a traveler. The way a country is portrayed in popular culture, the stories that get told, and the stereotypes that pass from generation to generation, may not always be true. But even if England is not the snowy Winter Wonderland I always imagined, even if I must live solely on strawberry Pop Tarts and say "trousers", I am sure I will enjoy my semester abroad and will have lots of stories to tell.