It’s officially been two months since our planes landed in London, yet I remember those first few days like they were yesterday. Two months ago, we defeated jet lag. Earlier this week, I realized I don’t even take naps anymore. Two months ago, we started living at Harlaxton. But I still find myself looking at the manor through the window of our shuttle going into town like a little kid looking into a candy shop.

Harlaxton is hard to explain. It’s school, but we live here. Imagine your middle school filled with college students, but you sleep upstairs and you see your teachers casually drinking beer in the basement. Now add secret passages and ghosts, and that’s kind of how it is.

We have organized meal times, so we can only eat at certain times throughout the day. This also means we eat with the same people (sometimes even at the same table) every day. We eat in the refectory, which I just assume is the British word for cafeteria. The food is aggressively average—as one of the visiting professors said the other day, “It’s not bad, but it’s never good either.”

Harlaxton is the first time I’ve gone a full two months without eating a single meal by myself. Sometimes it’s a battle between spending all the time you can with your friends before you have to leave and knowing you need to step away and spend some time to yourself. There isn’t much alone time here, but I choose to see that as a good thing. People we didn’t know before or don’t even remember meeting are now some of our favorite people to be around. We eat together, study together, travel together, watch movies together, and live together.

Those who came before us say no one truly understands Harlaxton like we do. The ones who live here for nearly four months—memorizing meals, mastering international travel (on a budget), struggling through British Studies—form connections you can’t do on a short-term trip or in the comfort of your home college town. We connect to each other, forming bonds in a few short months that are stronger than some friendships I’ve had since I was a kid. We connect to Harlaxton, our campus, pub, and home all rolled up into one place you never want to leave and always love coming back to after long weekends of traveling. We connect to the world, going places we’d previously only dreamt of seeing and learning about cultures that are different from our own. And we connect to ourselves in ways we never have before, learning new strengths, weaknesses, desires, and motivations.

At Harlaxton—and it sounds cliché—you’ll find yourself. At Harlaxton, you’ll find new best friends, and you’ll realize just how much your people back home mean to you. At Harlaxton, you’ll find trials and you’ll find victories. At Harlaxton, you’ll find your home.