The One with the Last Post

So I am now home safe and sound in England, and it has snowed more in the last six hours here than it did the whole semester in Boone. CRAZINESS!!!

We started out in Boone at the LLC at 8.00am on the 17th December. We left on a bus to Charlotte airport. We had to go back to pick up James and Evelien who we had left behind, but apart from that the first part of the journey went without a hitch. They told me at the airport that they would check my bags all the way to Heathrow, meaning I wouldn't have to collect them and recheck them at JFK. This made my day so much easier! A few of us went to get bagels and OJ for breakfast, then Marcella and I said goodbye to everyone and boarded our flight to JFK. This flight went fine, no problems.

We arrived at JFK, and went to Terminal 4 on the AirTrain where Marcella had to check in. She checked in on Air Lingus, then we went to have some food. We saw three creepy crawly bugs crawling along the wall which was kind of gross, but we were fine. We then took the AirTrain to Terminal 8 where I had to check in. I checked in, then by that time it was time for us to go our separate ways... We said goodbye on the AirTrain platform, then I went to find my gate and have some food before the flight. We boarded late because they hadn't finished cleaning the plane yet, which delayed us by about half an hour. I don't know if it's because it's near Christmas, but everyone was abusing the baggage policies, taking on three times their allowed amount of carry-on luggage. As a result, there was no room in the overhead bins for me to put my bag, so I had to put it under my seat which meant I couldn't stretch my legs out... Other than this, the flight was OK. I started watching District 9 and promptly fell asleep. I woke up and ate some crappy aeroplane food, then watched Band Slam. I then started watching Julie and Julia, and got about halfway through that before I fell asleep again... I watched an episode of Bones while I ate my croissant and drunk my OJ. By this time we were ready to land, , but we arrived about an hour later than planned because there wasn't a gate with a tunnel open for us to get into the airport. We had to go down the steps and into buses, which took us a very long way round and then dropped us off in an entrance where none of the escalators were working. The people with three carry-on cases were not happy about this. Serves them right for abusing baggage policies.

I got through customs fine, and picked up my luggage which came round the carousel extemely quickly. Then I walked down the pathway like you see in the movies where everyone's family is waiting for them, except my family actually WERE waiting for me. It was so nice to see them again and get big hugs :) I missed them a lot, maybe in the future they'll invent a Skype that gives you real hugs... hmm... But yes, I am back in Blighty and it is snowing and Christmassy and lovely, and we have a fire and the Christmas decorations are up and my room has been repainted and I have had three cups of tea. Everything is lovely :D

I guess seeing as my four month long journey to Appalachian State University and back is over, this will be my last blog post. It seems so sad to think that everything is over and while I'm really happy to be back home with my family, I will miss seeing everyone at Appalachian State every day... it seems so weird to think that I can't have storytime with Meagan or go down the corridor to see Liz, or hang out with my favourite internationals at Macados... I will miss everyone but I'll never forget the time we spent together and I have so many good memories that I will cherish forever :) Thanks to everyone who made my experience at App AMAZING!!!

The One with Sir Purr

This weekend my awesome wonderful roomie invited me home with her because they had an extra ticket to the Panthers game (her sister has finals so couldn't come home) and she wanted me to meet her parents. We set off at around 11 on Friday morning. Meagan has a Volvo and it's very nice with leather seats and nothing falling off anywhere :) It also smelled nice, unlike other Volvos I have been in previously (sorry Dad!) It only takes around two hours to drive from Boone to Charlotte, but Meagan kind of lives on the outskirts on the other side, so it took an extra half hour to get to Meagan's house.

First thing when we got in the door we were greeted by 1) her amazing fluffy soft cute dog called Casey and 2) her lovely Mum with a VERY strong New York accent. Firstly, I was shown Aisling's room which has two beds so I got the one they dont normally use (Aisling is Meagan's sister, pronounced ASH-LING). Meagan's house is GORGEOUS. It's really nice, everything is decorated nicely and she has so many awesome things. Upstairs she has a "playroom" which has a sofa and a chair which are suede and are the kind that recline and have a footrest, and a cupholder in the armrest. She has a MASSIVE tv in there with a PS2 and another console I think. She has Guitar Hero World Tour which has drums and a bass as well as a normal guitar. Downstairs is a lovely big kitchen with one of those tvs that come down from under the cupboard, and a big dining table next to french doors that lead out onto a lovely wooden deck with a chair and a barbecue. They also have a living room which they don't use much, a dining room ditto, and then a "den" which is like another lounge with comfy chairs and a big tv and a fireplace. I LOVE Meagan's house :)

On Friday we spent the entire day lounging on the awesome chairs upstairs watching TV. We had fajitas which her dad cooked on the grill outside which were delicious. We also watched Jeopardy which is like a family tradition in their house, it's a game show and it's fun because the questions are quite hard so it's a challenge. Meagan and her dad are RIDICULOUSLY fast at answering, my brain's not that quick! We went to bed after watching Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (they get it on BBC America here).

On Saturday Meagan and I got up and had breakfast, then went shopping. We went to Target, Borders and Harris Teeter (a supermarket) where we bought eggnog (I'd never had it before). Boone has no decent shops, so having proper shops was very exciting. We returned home and then watched a bit of TV. Then we went to church (I'd never been to a Catholic mass before but it was quite interesting) and then out to a really nice Italian restaurant for dinner. When we got back we watched more Jeopardy and then the 25th anniversary concert of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On Sunday we woke up, had breakfast, then set off for the game. We were going to walk through the downtown area of Charlotte first to show me around. We saw the Bank of America building where Meagan's Dad works, and lots of other big bank buildings (Charlotte is North Carolinas financial capital even though Raleigh is the actual capital). The Christmas decorations were beautiful, and there was a cute little ice skating rink in the middle. We got to the stadium, called the Bank of America stadium, and we had to walk up lots of ramps to get up to the second tier which is where Meagan's family's season ticket seats are. They go to pretty much every game so they are always prepared. They brought seat pads for everyone (it's a thing here in America, because usually the seats are cold and hard, so you have seat cushions with your team on them). We had our Panthers seat cushions x 4, our Panthers baseball caps (because we were on the sunny side) x 4, scarves, gloves, coats, jumpers, we were really warm and snug as bugs in a rug. It wasn't that cold at the start of the game but it got worse towards the middle of the third quarter.

At the start, there was an address from a local Rabbi, then the national anthem was sung by TAYLOR HICKS!!!!! He won season 5 of American Idol and he was actually quite good. He's playing Danny in a Broadway version of Grease now. The Panthers have a mascot called Sir Purr (a panther) and their team of cheerleaders are called the Top Cats. There were lots of goings on at the beginning, the usual warm-ups and presentations of awards and stuff... I was loving it. Being so high up meant that we had a view of the whole field. This really helped me to understand what was going on even more because I could see exactly where penalty flags were being thrown down and which yard things were happening at. I feel like I can understand football quite well now. The stadium is MASSIVE, with 73,778 seats in total. Not all the seats were full, but it was still a pretty good turnout. The Tampa Bay Bucanneers from Florida were supposedly a good team, but we beat them with the final score of 16-6. Although it was quite a low scoring game, it was still REALLY exciting. I had a really good time, I didn't think I'd ever properly enjoy football but being at this massive stadium watching a proper NFL game was awesome! There's a "kickoff specialist" on the Panthers from Dover called Rhys Lloyd so I was rooting for him :)

After the game we went back to the car and went to a noodle place for food (we were all hungry by then). It was delicious. We then finished packing up our stuff and left to drive back to Boone. We knew it had snowed on Saturday, so we saw lots of snow still on the ground and the temperature dropped from around 40 in Charlotte to 29 in Boone. There is still snow on te ground this morning, and it looks very pretty :) So I had a really amazing weekend, Meagan's parents were really nice and her dog was so cute!

The One with Spiel Stevenberg

The week leading up to Thanksgiving break was CRAZY!!! We all had soooooo much work to hand in, papers and presentations and short papers and proposals and AAAAARGHHHH!!!!! But we managed it all, even Marcella (from the Netherlands) who was still working on a paper the day we were supposed to leave so we ended up leaving a few hours later than planned... but it worked out ok :)

We (Marcella, Becca, James and I) left at around 3.00 on the POP 105 bus to the car hire place. We got our car (a Chevy something-or-other), and with Marcella driving, Becca navigating and James and I providing the music, we left down the mountain to Columbia, South Carolina. It took us around three hours (with a quick stop at Wendy's for food). We were going to drop James off with his second cousin who he had never met before and then continue on to Charleston. We got to Bill and Marge's house after a lot of wrong turns and directions from people in a dodgy gas station, but we made it eventually. Marge (James's second cousin) and Bill were really welcoming and friendly. Their house was gorgeous, really homely and warm, and they have a beautiful dog called Cheyenne. They had set out supper for us, and they had PROPER ENGLISH TEA, and TATE AND LYLE GOLDEN SYRUP and MARKS AND SPENCERS LEMON CURD!!!!! They have travelled all over the world, but they especially love Cornwall. They work with an organisation called CLC Ministries as Christian missionaries setting up Christian bookshops all over the world. They had so many fun stories to tell :)

We spent the night in their lovely extension which has a bedroom, a living room with a sofa bed and its own bathroom and kitchen area. We had breakfast there the next day (MORE TEA = YAY!!!!!), then we left James there and set off for Charleston. Our girly road trip was about to begin!!! We had a pretty uneventful drive to Charleston as it was only about an hour and a half from Columbia. We arrived and went to the visitor's centre where we picked up leaflets and brochures so we could decide a plan of action. We went to find some food and while we ate we planned what we were going to do. First we went to the slave museum, the aquarium and a few other places along the way. We checked in to our Best Western hotel and then rested for an hour. We drove back in to Charleston to eat at a restaurant called Vickery's. We then decided to have an early night, so we went back to the hotel and slept.

The next morning was Thankgiving. We had heard that there was an event called the "Turkey Day Race". It was a race which lots of people took part in, so we had breakfast at Starbucks and watched the action. We also observed a mother on the table behind us who had dressed her baby up in a turkey outfit... scary. We then decided to have a carriage ride. Our horse was called Zag, and it was a very fun and informative ride, we learnt a lot about Charleston. One of the strange things was that because there were quite a few carriage companies operating in Charleston, they had to have a way of telling them which routes to go so as not to cause a congestion problem. The way they decide this is with a little bingo machine outside a hut, and every time a carriage pulls up to it they spin it and whichever colour ball comes out is the route they take. We happened to get a blue ball. We saw some of the typical houses in Charleston called "Charleston singles", which are very narrow on the street side of the house but very long, so the square footage was still pretty high. This was just to save space. We also learnt that many houses in Charleston have spaces on the side of their houses which we assumed were porches, but are actually called piazzas. A piazza is built into the architecture of the house, whereas a porch is added afterward. Apparently Obama mentioned the "porches of Charleston" in his inauguration speech, and the people of Charleston were not amused. We saw a couple of houses with pineapples on their gateposts. These were used in the 1800s and early 1900s as a way to tell people you were back from holiday and were ready to receive visitors.

We then took a stroll in Waterfront Park. This is a beautiful stretch of park along the shore where there are beautiful fountains, grassy areas and (the best bit of all) a wooden promenade with swinging benches. We had great fun on these. We also saw some massive birds which turned out to be pelicans. The waterfront was absolutely gorgeous in the sunlight, with all the palm trees we were sure we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Florida! Rainbow row is also a famous landmark in Charleston. It is a stretch of houses near the waterfront which are all painted an assortment of pretty rainbow colours. It was really awesome in the sunshine :) Another feature of Charleston we liked was that lots of houses had little lamps outside their doors which had flames in them (gas powered, the council helps them with their gas bills if they purchase them because they add to the charm of the city). In a pub called Tommy Condons (Irish) we had our first ever Thanksgiving dinner. We ate roast turkey, green bean casserole, candied yams (sweet potatoes - really sweet and tasted like they had spices in them) and stuffing/cornbread (we couldn't tell which it was). It was nice, but strange. We also did a ghost walk in Charleston, led by a weird woman who was talking more about the energy of people who have passed than actual ghosts themselves. She was talking about the science behind why people see ghosts, which was kind of interesting...

The next morning we set off for Wilmington, North Carolina. It was around a five hour drive, but we stopped at various places. Most memorably we stopped at a place called Myrtle Beach, which is about halfway between Charleston and Wilmington. Myrtle Beach is like a bigger, more American version of Blackpool or Skegness. It is extremely touristy, although most of the hotels had closed until March. We just wanted to see the beach really, so we wandered along it. It was a beautiful beach, with proper white sand and really blue water. The weather was yet again gorgeous, and we really appreciated the sun. We spent about an hour in Myrtle Beach, then continued on to Wilmington. When we arrived in Wilmington, we parked up and wandered up the main street, then along the pier. Wilmington is GORGEOUS. I could actually see myself living there, it seems really quiet and friendly, and everything is beautiful. Marcella happens to be a massive Dawson's Creek fan (a TV show) and I am a massive One Tree Hill fan (a TV show) which both happen to be filmed in Wilmington, so we were in heaven. Everywhere we walked, we saw places that we recognised from the show. It was AMAZING!!!

We got sheets from the tourist information place telling us the main locations from both shows, so we set about finding the main ones we wanted to see. We had lunch at a place called Hells Kitchen (from Dawsons Creek) which made Marcella ridiculously happy. We saw the bridge and the river court (basketball court) from One Tree Hill, which means my life is now officially complete :) We saw various other places including one of the shops used in OTH, the pier restaurant used in DC, and the record store used in OTH (I bought a CD there!). We also had a boat ride, which took us across the Cape Fear River to the Battleship North Carolina (one of the most haunted ships in America). We had a Hollywood location tour from a guy who called himself Spiel Stevenberg (he actually was the spitting image of Steven Spielberg). He showed us around various locations around Wilmington which were used in films and TV shows (films filmed in Wilmington or "Wilmywood" include 28 Days with Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen, Black Dog with Patrick Swayze and Meatloaf, Blue Velvet with Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini, Weekend at Bernies, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1&2) and Raw Deal with Arnie himself). It was a really funny yet interesting tour, with lots of interesting locations including a diner FILLED with Coke memorabilia, everything down to the napkin holders and the bar stools, but they only sell Pepsi.

We also had a ghost talk the same night from the same person (this time dressed as a pirate calling himself Captain Wilder). We walked around Wilmington (supposed to be one of the most haunted places in the US (one of the programmes I watch called Ghost Hunters has filmed there three times)). It showed us a different side of Wilmington, and we saw a lot more of the city. We ate the second night at a restaurant they used in Dawson's Creek called Elijah's. It was on the waterfront and we sat at the window so the view as the sun was setting was beautiful. Whilst in Wilmington we also took two carriage tours, one the first night and one the second night. We had the same horse both times, called Harry. The tour company save horses who were used by the Ahmish but were too slow for what they needed them for. The carriages were really cute, they even had blankets for everyone to cover up when it got cold. We had two different tour guides but they were both really interesting and we went on different routes both times so we got to see more of the city. Seeing a city at night on a horse-drawn carriage with all the Christmas lights on was pretty magical. We all three agreed that while we loved both places, we would rather visit Charleston and live in Wilmington.

We set off on Sunday morning to Charlotte where we were going to pick up James (Bill dropped him off at Carolina Place mall, which gave us a few hours to wander around the mall before they arrived). We tried out $1 massage chairs, which was a painful but hilarious experience. We ate lunch and spent about an hour in Barnes and Noble, which is a famous chain of bookstores here in America. We picked James up, exchanged gifts with Bill (they had gotten us Christmas gifts of books and we got them gifts to thank them for letting us stay (a candle holder with a Christmas tree on it, cinnamon candles and a bag of baked dog treats from a special bakery called the K-9 coastal bakery in Wilmington which were shaped like gingerbread men and Christmas trees). We drove back home, stopping at Applebee's for dinner. We were so tired that we just fell straight to sleep. All in all, an awesome Thanksgiving break with two of my favourite internationals :)

The One with the Old Mountain Jug

To start off this post, here is a random fact: My roomate is ginger yet is allergic to carrots. I find that this gives me hours of amusement and is very ironic.

So, the reason why I haven't blogged in so long is because I have been SUPER busy with papers to write before Thanksgiving. My mother accused me of not blogging, so therefore to make her happy I will blog at half past seven in the morning when my eyes are still half closed and i really feel like jumping back into bed...

This week was the gig I have been excited about for quite a few weeks now - Anberlin, All American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday. It was doors at seven, so I dropped my stuff off in Becca's room, and then Becca, Marcella and I headed to the dining hall. We met Evelien, Riina, Emma, Lena and Maria there, had some food, then headed to the Convocation Center (about five minutes walk down Rivers Street). We had to wait in a line but it didn't take that long to get in. You have to have bags searched but not many of us brought bags luckily so we got in pretty quickly. We went to the restrooms then headed down to the floor (we had standing tickets). We got a space quite close to the front on the right side (stage left i guess), and stood around until eight when Anberlin came on. They were ok, they got the crowd going quite well but they were a but too heavy for my taste. It was good just to hear live music again though :)

The All American Rejects came on after a half hour break, and they came on in a very dramatic fashion. The lead singer was wearing black, tight glittery jeans and he was topless, but he had a design painted on his chest and back in glitter which looked very cool under the lights. They played all of their most popular singles, plus a few old ones and a couple off their newest album. It was a really good show - I think the singer was on more than adrenaline though, he looked crazed and was talking crazy talk. He called us his "little apples" because we're APPALachian state.... anyway, it was an awesome set and everyone was really loving it.

Taking Back Sunday were on last, and the singer is from Greensboro, North Carolina so I guess they were the favourites because they were kind of local. Their set was OK but I wasn't really familiar with any of their songs. There were loads of empty seats and space on the floor which I was surprised about, considering the tickets were only $20 I thought there would have been more people there... but it was still a very enjoyable show. After the gig we walked home, and ordered food in Becca's room. Her roomate is obsessed with the show Golden Girls, so we were subjected to that for a bit. I then left and walked up to the library to do some work, where I stayed until 7.30 in the morning.

At 12.15 the next day, having overslept because we had cinema tickets for the 1.00 showing of New Moon, I had to get dressed super fast and run up the hill to the bus stop. I got there in plenty of time though so it was all good. Becca, Marcella and I were very impressed by the film. It was such an improvement on the first one, and eveyrthing about it was better. At American cinemas apparently it is the common custom to clap at the end of films... strange if you ask me - it's not like it's a play and the actors can hear you...

This Saturday was the last scheduled home game for the Mountaineers. We had food in Trivette hall, then headed up to the stadium. We got seats right in the middle section, so it was a really good view. The atmosphere in the student section is always mental, everyone stands on the bleachers and most people are drunk :) It's all good fun though. It was only the second time I have stayed the entire game, because for some reason this game seemed to go quicker than usual - only 2.5 hours as opposed to 3/4 sometimes. We won the Battle for the Old Mountain Jug (a historic game between us and Western Carolina which is played every year.) The winning team gets a "jug" decorated with both team's mascots and logos on. It was a really good atmosphere at the end when we won :)

These past few days I've been trying to finish papers so I can have a stress-free Thanksgiving break. We're going on a little road trip, to Columbia SC first, then to Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington NC. I am most excited about Wilmington because we're going to visit some of the locations where One Tree Hill is filmed :D eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! I'm really excited!

The One with the End of Fall

This past week or so has been quite an eventful one. School was boring, just the usual stuff, plus I had an exam on tuesday in US-Latin American Relations. I think it went ok, will get the results back tomorrow.

The lead-up to Halloween has been crazy but quite fun. Walmart has had decorations up pretty much since we got here in the middle of August, then there was a period where they had both christmas stuff and halloween stuff, now i'm sure as I write this they are decorating the entire store with enough tinsel and fake snow to cover the entire state of North Carolina. If there's one thing America know how to do well it's commercialism. I've enjoyed celebrating Halloween in America though, just to see how crazy they really do go. I'm looking forward to the run-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, mostly Thanksgiving because we don't really celebrate that in England. They don't have bonfire night here which is extremely sad, but they have their fireworks on the 4th of July...

Anyway, so on Wednesday, Meagan and I got 'booed'. This is not what it sounds like. People did not boo us in the literal sense of shouting booooo at us, apparently 'booing' here is different. It involves leaving two Halloween treats outside two doors in your dorm, and leaving a note on their door saying 'we've been booed' and also a note with the treat detailing instructions on how to 'boo' two more people. We got left a little Halloween basket filled with candy, so we made our own, which I artfully coloured in, and filled them with candy, and left them outside two more doors. The goal is to boo everyone in the dorm by the end, and the LLC had quite a few by Saturday :)

For my Popular Culture class we had to sign up to help with the kids in the community center and the library for Halloween, so on Saturday I headed out to the Watauga County Public Library. It was the 10th annual 'Boone Boo', where kids from the local area dress up and come with their parents to downtown Boone and do lots of fun Halloween activities. We started in the library making crafts (including dangly monsters, pumpkins and bats, all with googly eyes). The kids had fun and we had fun helping them and handing out candy from purple pumpkin baskets. Costumes here included twin boys dressed as dragons, twin girls dressed as cats, spider girl, Jack and Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas and a scarecrow (the father) carrying around their baby who they had dressed as a hot dog (mildly disturbing). My witch hat kept falling off but it was fine, as long as I didn't wear it ouside because of the wind. The other girl from our class who was there (also called Holly) had a much more creative costume - a Sun-Maid raisin box. There were meant to be more people from our class there but everyone else bailed (however we got extra credit, so they missed out there). After clearing up the path of destruction the kids had left (it was like a whirlwind had hit a crayon factory) we headed over to the community center which was set up like a haunted house, with a maze going through with spooky noises and a ghost that jumped out at you. Some of the kids were quite scared, but only one kid cried and that was in the library, for about two seconds until we distracted him with a pumpkin. We cleared up all the decorations and put them in the attic, then Holly gave me a ride home.

I had a rest and did some more revision whilst watching Halloween TV with Meagan, then she headed out to a party at seven. Mine didn't start until ten, so I hung out until quarter to ten when we got picked up by Alaine and Michael. They took us to Alaine's apartment where the party was, and we had a really good time with jell-o shots and good music. It got a bit crazy because there were lots of people in a very small space, but it was a really good night. Costumes at this party included scary clown, Audrey Hepburn, Grecian goddess, gangsters, Amy Winehouse, Indiana Jones and Juno (pregnant teenager from famous movie of the same name). Emily gave us rides back to our dorms at around 3am. I was so tired that I just collapsed into bed and slept until twelve (actually eleven because the clocks went back - this confused me immensely for a while).

Apparently Fall has now officially ended (even though it hasn't) but according to the town planners it has, because the signs that said 'Fall in love with Boone' which were up on every lamppost in town have now been replaced with a sparkly snowflake light on every lamppost. Whilst they are very pretty, i can't help but feel sorry for Fall, because technically it should get an extra month before its decorations get taken down. Oh well, pretty snowflake lights it is then :)

This week I have two exams and a paper to write where I have to find a Latin American immigrant and interview them. I have yet to find said immigrant, so that should be fun...

The One with Fall Break

Fall break at App is basically where you get Thursday and Friday off, plus the weekend, so many people go on vacation somewhere nice. For us internationals, that meant a trip to Washington DC :) We were supposed to leave at 6.30 am on the Thursday morning, but thankfully it got pushed back to 7.30. We all met at the LLC, and piled into two 12-seater vans. 22 internationals plus 2 drivers = lots of very squashed people. The journey there took less than seven hours, and we only made one stop at a gas station in Virginia. We had some food and then continued our journey to Washington. It was raining heavily as we arrived, and we drove down Constitution Avenue, past all the monuments and the White House. It was wet but still very exciting to be in a new city. You could literally smell the history :)

We checked into our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott in the lower East corner of Washington. We checked in, then because we weren't starting our night time tour of the monument until seven, we decided to walk to find somewhere to eat. We realised that our hotel was basically in a place which was in the middle of building sites and office complexes, so it took us a couple of miles to reach restaurants. We finally found Pennsylvania avenue, a street which goes diagonally across the centre of DC. We had a nice dinner, then walked back to the hotel to meet up with the other internationals. We took the Metro, because Navy Yard metro station was about a minute's walk from the hotel.

We got off at L'Enfant Plaza, which is a station where you can transfer to any of the four lines (orange, blue, yellow and green, of which Navy Yard is on the green). We transferred to another station which is closer to the monuments, then got off and took a tour of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, World War II memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial. They were very atmospheric in the dark and rain, and surprisingly busy with tourists. We did a lot of walking that night, and when we got back at about 11 we just collapsed into bed. I was sharing a room with Becca, Marcella and Evelien. Marcella and Evelien were in one bed and Becca and I in the other. They were extremely comfortable, unlike the Super 8 motel we stayed in in Raleigh...

As there were four girls to shower, Marcella woke up at 6.30 for hers, then we all took turns. We were all ready by 8, and headed over to the nearby Starbucks for a coffee. We met back at the hotel at 9, and headed out on the Metro to the Museum of Natural History. I think the only place I have seen more marble is Rome. All the museums are white, and most of them are marble. One of the great things about Washington is that because most of the museums are owned by the Smithsonian Institution, they are all freeeeeeee!!!!! The history museum was really good, but kind of similar to the one in London. We spent about an hour in there, then moved on to the National Archives. There we saw the original Declaration of Independenace and the Constitution of the US, along with the Bill of Rights. It was so exciting to think that I was looking at the ACTUAL paper that their quills had touched all those years ago. The signatures were the most interesting parts, I enjoyed reading them all.

From here, we went to the Museum of the American Indian. We didn't get to spend much time in here which was sad, but we did have lunch which was AMAZING. The cafeteria was set out in different sections, from "The Great Plains" to "South America and everything inbetween. I had a lovely chipotle chicken taco. We then walked up Capitol Hill (where the Capitol building which houses Congress is situated). At the top, behind the Capitol building is the Library of Congress. We spent a lot of time in here, because it had a very nice atmosphere and was fascinating. The original library was burnt down and they lost almost all the books, so Thomas Jefferson offered to sell them his personal collection for around $24,000. They accepted, but then this collection also got burnt down some years later. They are currently rebuilding the collection, buying around 600 books every year. Jefferson's library had an amazing collection of books, and instead of organising them alphabetically or by subject, he separated them into four sections, Memory, Reason and Imagination (or History, Philosophy and Fine Art).

After leaving the Library of Congress, we headed on the Metro over the river to Pentagon City Mall for a spot of retail therapy. Boone doesn't have a lot of shops, so the girls went crazy. We spent a few hours shopping, then returned to the hotel to drop off our shopping before heading out to meet some of the guys at the Hard Rock Cafe in Chinatown. We had drinks (non-alcoholic for the under-21s) and chatted until about 1. We were all really tired, so we got the Metro back to the hotel.

The next morning, some of the group headed off to Arlington cemetery. We decided to skip this, heading instead to H&M (we don't have one anywhere close to Boone) and then on to the National Gallery of Art. I could possibly have spent all day in here, but we did spent the entire morning wandering around. We ate lunch there too, and just enjoyed the art and the fantastic architecture of the two buildings (the West building housed the classical art from Da Vinci to Monet, whilst the East building housed the modern art from Picasso to Lichtenstein). After lunch we headed for the zoo. It was still pouring down with rain, so we just saw the cheetahs, the emus and the pandas (which were the most important as I had never seen a Giant Panda before) which were closest to the entrance. We stopped at Starbucks for about the tenth time on our trip (Starbucks is also another thing Boone doesn't have). We then went back to the hotel to change because we were going back to China town for dinner and to meet James (James didn't come on the trip with us but he got a lift from Christer, another App student we know who lives in Washington).

We were yet again exhausted after arriving back to the hotel at around 2am (it took longer because a hilarious incident occurred involving Becca sending James on the wrong train home, and us trying to contact him to tell him to switch trains). The next morning, we were due to leave at 12 and whilst everyone else had a lie-in, we decided not to waste our time in Washington. We left the hotel at nine to head for the Washington Memorial. We wanted to go up on the elevator to the top, but by the time we got there tickets had already sold out until the 12.30 trip, which would have been too late for us. We got back on the Metro and headed for the Museum of Crime and Justice and the International Spy Museum, both of which were $20 dollars to get into, and since we didn't have that much time we just had another Starbucks and headed back to the hotel.

We all piled back into the vans, and the journey took a little under an hour longer than the journey there, but we were all so tired that we slept for most of it anyway. We made a couple of stops, and arrived back at App at around 8pm on Sunday night, exhausted but happy after a fun weekend, despite all the rain :)

The One with Homecoming

This week has been pretty uneventful. Classes have been normal, although I did get my first 'B' on my US-Latin American Relations exam, which I was quite chuffed with. For Popular Culture this week Larry took us to Macado's where we ate nachos and talked about stuff. Not really a class, but Larry is awesome like that :)

On Thursday I went to Legends to see two local bands from Greensboro, Fear of Falling and Farewell. Meagan told me they were really good and they had been trying to get Farewell to come to App for years, so I went along, and I'm glad I did. It was a really good gig, packed with energy and really catchy tunes. They were really funny, and even though there weren't that many people there they still kept the atmosphere energetic :) I spoke to the lead singer afterwards when I went to the merch stand to buy CDs, and we were talking about England because they were there earlier this year on a tour.

The weather was beautiful on Friday, really hot with clear blue skies. We hoped it would stay the same for Homecoming, but I woke up on Saturday morning to grey skies and a chill in the air. However, I went to the Homecoming parade because it would be my only opportunity, it only happens once a year. There were various floats, the Army, the Marching Mountaineers complete with flag bearers and batont twirlers. They walked down Rivers Street then across to King Street, then each little group did a performance in front of the judges. My roommate's kazoo band won the best kazoo band award, which she was very proud of :)

Then it was the Homecoming game against North Carolina Central, and the stadium was packed even though the weather was rainy and grey. We had lots of fun watching the Marching Mountaineers, then they played the national anthem and then the game begun. We were 10 points up at the end of the first half, 24-14. Then they have a ceremony on the pitch where homecoming King and Queen are announced, and then the game commenced. We smashed them 55-21 in the end, which was an amazing victory :)

Looking forward to Washington now, but not looking forward to getting up at 5am on Thursday morning... but it should be a fun trip.

The One with the Road Trip!!!!!

WOW, what an absolutely AMAZING weekend :) Definitely one of the highlights of my time here so far, we had so much fun and the concert was one of the best shows I've ever seen!

So, Saturday morning we all met outside the LLC to walk down to the bus stop. We had to run the last bit so we didn't miss it. Apparently the Pop 105 route isn't popular at 10.15 on a Saturday morning because we had the bus to ourselves. We got off opposite the Enterprise car rental place and risked our lives to cross the road. We got the car which didn't take too long. It was a Toyota Sienna, which was very nice and had 16 cupholders (we tried but even we didn't have enough cups and bottles to fill them all). The six of us piled in, and Marcella and Becca who were sitting in the front between them managed to figure out the gearstick and the brake, so we set off for Raleigh! Marcella had never driven an automatic before and it was really funny because every time she thought she needed to change gear she would instinctively reach for the gear stick, and she had a bottle of water in the cupholder next to her, so she changed gears with the bottle of water :)

We listened to a Muse album all the way down about three times (Showbiz) and stopped a couple of times along the way. We got to the Super 8 motel at about 4.00 and checked in to our rooms (two rooms with a king size bed in each, so three shared one bed and two shared the other). James was sharing with the Belgians so he went to his room. We met up again at about 5 and got a taxi to the Crabtree mall. Marcella and Evelien were amazed because it was the biggest place they had ever been in their lives. It was a pretty massive mall, and we wandered around the halloween shop and a couple of other stores. We had food, then took another taxi to the Carter Finlay Stadium. We were supposed to get two taxis, but the driver told us when he got there that his other taxi wouldn't be here for 20 minutes. We didn't want to wait because it was 6 already and the concert was due to start at 7. The driver insisted he could fit six of us in the five seater car. We looked at him skeptically, but somehow we got everybody in, with Evelien lying across four people in the back and one person in the front seat with the driver.

The traffic was really bad so the driver dropped us off at a gas station about a mile from the stadium. We followed the masses and walked to the stadium. We arrived and got through the gates quickly because it seemed that everybody was still in the traffic jam outside (they should have planned their time more carefully is what I say). Everybody in the parking lots was tailgating, grilling and chilling with beers and music. It seems like the Americans will use any event to tailgate. We got inside and got drinks before we went to our seats. We were quite high up, but with a fairly good view of the front of the stage. For 36 dollars I think it was amazing value, considering it would probably cost £50 or more to see U2 in England. We were only waiting about 15 minutes before Muse started. We were shocked because it was 7.30 but still the stadium seemed to be half empty. It continued to fill up throughout the Muse set, but it seemed that because Muse are a less well-known band in America, people just turned up to see U2.

Muse were AMAZING. They were more understated than U2 and didn't put on quite as much of a show, but the lights and the special effects on the screen made it really cool. They sound really good live, and Matthew Bellamy is so talented :) They played a couple of tracks from the new album The Resistance, and then a few crowd pleasers from older albums. It gave me a new appreciation for Muse, because whilst I enjoyed listening to some songs, I always thought they were a little experimental for my tastes. Hearing them live really brought the songs alive for me, and made me realise how amazingly talented they are. They're bringing something new to the table, and it's admirable. Plus they're British so I support them anyway :) They're from James's hometown so he loves them.


Muse setlist -
1. Uprising
2. Map of the Problematique
3. SuperMassive Black Hole
4. Intro/Hysteria
5. Unnatural Selection
6. Undisclosed Desires
7. Starlight
8. Time Is Running Out

There was about half an hour between bands, and I was going to buy a t-shirt but they were $40 so I decided against it. We were just enjoying the atmosphere and soaking it up. Being in an outdoor stadium is so different, and the night was so beautiful that it made it even more special. The sky was brilliantly clear with a full moon, and a few little clouds around it. Bono was singing to the moon at one point which was eerie and very cool, and made me love him even more :) The full stadium lights were still on, and suddenly we heard "ground control to major tom..." and then Space Oddity was playing really loudly for about two minutes. Then everything went black, and U2 came on and the stage lit up :) It was so exciting and even though they're getting on a bit, they still know how to rock out! Bono was really energetic and sounded amazing and the Edge was on top form both vocally and on the axe :)

Bono didn't preach too much (only a little about Burma and Iran) Highlights were 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for' and 'Mysterious Ways'. They also did 'Stuck in a Moment' acoustically which was really beautiful. There were some really special moments, such as when the crowd sung the entire first verse of 'Still haven't found what I'm looking for' and you could hear EVERY WORD clearly. Usually when the crowd sings it tails off after a couple of lines, but this crowd kept going right the way through, it was amazing. Bono also brought out a nine year old boy to come on stage with him during 'The Unforgettable Fire' , and gave him his glasses which looked very funny :) Bono also broke out into a couple of little random parts of 'Stand by Me', 'Rock the Casbah', 'Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Again)', 'People Get Ready' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone', which were all really cool, memorable moments. You could feel the love in there, and there was just a great atmosphere and energy. There was also a moment where Bono just threw the mic to a random guy in the crowd during 'Crazy Tonight' and let him sing an entire verse. All in all, an epic event, one of the best live shows I've ever seen and it just made this experience in North Carolina even more special.

U2 setlist -
1. Breathe
2. Get On Your Boots
3. Mysterious Ways
4. Beautiful Day
5. No Line On The Horizon
6. Magnificent
7. Elevation
8. In A Little While
9. New Year's Day
10. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
11. Stuck In A Moment
12. The Unforgettable Fire
13. City Of Blinding Lights
14. Vertigo
15. Crazy Tonight
16. Sunday Bloody Sunday
17. MLK
18. Walk On

Encores (there were three):
19. One
20. Where The Streets Have No Name
21. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
22. With Or Without You
23. Moment of Surrender

We walked back to the gas station and got a taxi back to the motel. We were really tired and were getting up early to go to the mall, so we went to bed at about 1.30. The next morning we got up, had our free motel breafast and checked out, then piled back into the car to drive to downtown Raleigh. It was dead, we didn't expect this although it was Sunday morning. We drove to a historic park, which was where President Andrew Johnson was born, and which has a replica plantation house which you can go round (although it was closed). We drove to the mall, where we discovered Target. Target is an amazing shop where you can literally buy anything. James and I headed for the music while the girls headed for the clothes and shoes. After we had rounded everybody up (losing internationals in Target would have been bad), we then left and drove to Durham to Duke University. Duke is one of the best non ivy-league schools in the country, and it was a beautiful campus, with lots of trees and statues and beautiful buildings. There were students playing tennis, and statues everywhere. It reminded me very much of Oxford - pretty but very pretentious. Duke is a school where to attend you either have to be a) extremely rich or b) have a scholarship. All the kids we saw were driving convertible cars.

We then drove to the main part of campus where there is a famous chapel. There were loads of cars and there had to be some sort of event going on, so we asked a couple of policemen what was going on. They informed us that it was 'blessing of the animals day'. We parked around the back and walked up to the chapel. Turns out it was a day where everyone brings their pets to be blessed at the chapel. They were all outside (obviously, imagine hundreds of cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters, owls, ferrets and a HORSE inside a church). It was really bizarre but really cool, they had a nice service and then invited people to come up and tell stories about their pets. We met people from rescue centers, a dog therapist and various other families who let us pet their animals :) It seemed like a nice community event, everyone brought their picnics and their families, and it was just a really nice highlight to the trip. We then went to the Duke shop to get snacks and drinks, and then left to drive to Winston Salem.

We drove to Winston-Salem, our U2 CD blaring, and arrived at Old Salem, the historic district. We ate at Jimmy John's subs, and rested a little before our final leg of the journey, another hour drive to Boone. Driving on the windy mountain roads without street lights was fun, and we eventually arrived back in Boone. Marcella dropped us off at the LLC, then we went to bed because we were all extremely tired, but extremely happy after a fantastic weekend road trip :)

The One with the Bus

Well, this past week and a half has been rather uneventful. Highlights include tie dying on Sanford Mall, where we got free t-shirts and dyed them lots of pretty colours. Mine has now dried and it actually looks quite good :) Another highlight was that me and Becca went on an adventure to find the car hire place to rent a car for the gig on Saturday, and we got the Pop 105 bus, which I'd never ridden before (basically the Appalcarts have lots of different routes depending on where you want to go. There's the blue, gold, red, orange etc. and then the Pop route which goes along route 105 which is one of the most major roads around here). The route is beautiful, it goes up to some student accommodation which is really high up so the view was amazing :) I like to ride the bus, it is fun and seeing as it is free here, even better!

Another highlight was my popular culture class. Sadly we didn't go on a field trip this time, but Larry showed us lots of old footage of when he used to go to TV shows to be in the audience and he used to ask lots of questions so he used to get on TV :) he looked funny in all the various clips from different years. He also showed us some documentary footage that students who used to go to their loft in NYC shot when they were there over a summer.

Yesterday I got a phone call from Nesibelli (from Kazakhstan) and she invited me to her room to have dinner because she had cooked her national dish. It was really good, we watched Finding Nemo on her roommate's massive TV and ate the food (which was chopped chicken and potatoes with lots of herbs, it was really good) and drank grape juice. She's really fun, and I've learnt a lot about her culture which is great.

Today I have been studying for two exams which I have on tuesday. I went to get food from McAlisters, and because everybody raves about their sweet tea I tried it. It was actually really delicious. Being British I felt kind of like a traitor to proper tea, but it was definitely nowhere near as good as Sainsburys Red Label :) Tonight I have been fingerpainting with my roomie and watching Independence Day, cos we're cool like that :)

The One with the Fire Station

It's 7.15pm and pouring down with rain. I'm standing in the middle of King Street outside Boone Fire House. Why? Only one explanation - Larry.

I had to blog about my Pop Culture class today because I was yet again truly in awe of Larry and the things he tells us and the places he takes us to and the people he knows. We get to the usual classroom, and we take attendance. Then Larry talks for about five minutes about 9/11. He used to take students to NY city on trips and they had a loft a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center, which they sold in 1998. He lived there from 1972 to 1996 as well so he is pretty attached to it. He joked that he wanted some of his ashes in Boone, some in his hometown, some in New York City, and some in Graceland. He's got so much character about him.

Then Larry says that every year around the anniversary he shows students a documentary called 9/11, narrated by Robert De Niro and it won the prize for the best 9/11 documentary. It was made by two brothers from France called the Naudets. They were originally filming a documentary about a rookie NY fireman, but it turned into a documentary about the firefighters of 9/11 when they were caught in the middle of it. Their footage was the only footage from inside tower 1. Larry said that we were going to watch it in the Boone Fire House on King Street. We walked up there and were greeted by fire chief Reginald Hassler and fire marshall Ronnie Marsh. We were taken to their briefing room where they talked about what they do in Boone.

It was amazing because they had so many connections to the town. Larry my professor used to be Mayor of Boone at one time, and the fire chief's son actually helped out with his election campaign. The fire chief's whole family (brother, wife, two children and himself) were Appalachian State graduates, and one of the other firemen we were introduced to, Kent Brown, had a grandfather who was also Mayor of Boone in the 1960s, and when he died at the age of 101 last year, Larry actually spoke at his funeral. It was weird that they all had so many connections to the area, and it was obvious that they loved their job, seeing as most of the men who work there are volunteers. Reginald Hassler was actually the first paid fireman in Boone, 17 years ago. It was really good to meet them, they obviously care a lot about the students and the town, and would do anything to help us out. It was also nice to see the shiny fire engines :)

We watched the documentary, which was quite upsetting and sombreing, and I think that no matter how many 9/11 documentaries you see, they never get less upsetting to watch. It was interesting to see a documentary from the perspective of a filmmaker caught up in the middle of a nightmare. He focused on the firefighters of Ladder 1, and to see them in action as they tried to make sense of what was happening was scary but inspiring to watch, because the comeradery and team spirit of all the firefghters was immense.

The scene that sticks in my mind the most is when the firefighters get called out to a routine gas leak. They are standing over the manhole cover testing with an instrument for gas, and you can see that people on the street behind them all look up into the sky simultaneously, and then a ginormous roar is heard, which sounds like a plane but really close, and then the brother who was filming with a hand-held camera pans up to the first tower, and everything seems normal, then apparently out of nowhere comes a plane. It is surreal, and if it wasn't on a hand held camera you would have sworn it was fake. The way the situation went from a routine gas leak check to a complete nightmare was scary.

A scary fact from the film was that a fire fighter with about 60 pounds of gear takes one minute to climb a single flight of stairs in the World Trade Center. Those firemen had to climb 80 flights of stairs to get to the crash site. That's a long time. It was good to see it, because the theme of the class was about events that defined our generation. 9/11 was definitely the defining world event of my teens, and visiting New York made me think about it even more. The rest of the world can forget more easily, but the impact of 9/11 is still seen today throughout the whole of America, even here in North Carolina.

The One with the Mountaineers

Saturday was the Appalachian Mountaineer's first home game of the season, against McNeese State who are a university from Louisiana. I didn't know a single thing about American Football before the game, so I was relying on Savannah and Alison to tell me what was going on (though to be honest, I don't actually think anyone really knows what's going on). First was a ritual the Americans call tailgating. This originated in parking lots and camping grounds when people would let down the tailgate of their pickup trucks and have a grill set up with music and drinks. This has evolved in universitied into an event where each sorority/fraternity and various other societies on campus set up their own tent and grill and have food and generally chill out around the tent. We went to the INTAPP tent (international appalachian) and hung out with the internationals and lots of other Americans who are involved with INTAPP. They were just introducing us to the phenomenon that is 'Game Day' - it really is a big deal here, and considering the game is so boring I think they tailgate and get drunk beforehand to make it more bearable. Alcohol is allowed at tailgating for over 21s, as long as it is only in cans (no bottles or kegs allowed) and the cans have to have a sleeve over them so you're not seen to be advertising the fact that you're drinking. They are pretty strict on the rules on alcohol, especially on Game Day where violence could easily break out, so no alcohol is allowed inside the stadium, and you're not allowed to bring your own drinks inside, even water.

Before the game, the marching band and the cheerleaders put on a show, which was quite spectacular :) The whole game atmosphere was pretty cool actually. There is a giant inflatable tunnel with a giant football helmet at the end for the team to enter the stadium through. Then there are fireworks and it was so pretty :) There are so many people on each team because the offense and defense switch pretty often, so it seems like hundreds of players are running out onto the pitch.

So the game is split into four 15 minute quarters. Somehow though, because of various rules and the fact that they have to get back into position every time the ball stops or goes out of plan, they manage to make a one hour game last over three hours. We were sitting on the grass bank, flanked on both sides by the stands which were pretty packed. McNeese state had a small section at one end, but the rest was full of people wearing various App shirts of different colours and designs, the predominant colour being yellow. It was a beautiful sunny day, so plenty of suncream was needed. We were having a good time just chilling and talking, not really paying much attention to the game because it was boring. The internationals were not impressed, and much as the locals tried to tell us it was good, we were hard to please :)

The last quarter was actually pretty intense though (it was almost dark by then the game had gone on so long). We were up, then down, then up, and then in the last eighteen seconds McNeese scored a touchdown with a two-point conversion, meaning they were up 40-35. After the last ten seconds had been dragged out to about ten minutes, the Mountaineers were defeated by the Cowboys. We weren't that bothered, but it would have been nice to win the first home game of the season, especially seeing as they were ranked about 14 positions below us in the table. We came back to the LLC and ordered in food, and sat around talking. We were all pretty tired.

The One with the Three Cups of Tea (part 2)

Today is when an event the Americans call 'Convocation' occurs. As far as I can tell, it's just a gathering of various alumni, staff and people important to the university sitting together and having a sort of ceremony where various awards are given out. It takes place in the Convocation Center, on the East side of campus. This is also the venue for basketball games.

First there was the processional, with the brass band playing and all the alumni and staff dressed in robes and caps, and everyone had to stand while they filed in and sat down. Then the chancellor of Appalachian came and spoke, and handed out various awards including student employee of the year and a couple of honorary doctorates.

Then came the big event. Every year, the university has a book which all the freshmen have to read over the summer, and then they have various discussions about it. In a previous blog I talked about how I sat in on a discussion about the book 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Sorenson. Every year they get the author of said book to come and speak at convocation. It just so happens that since Greg is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has been on the Times top 100 books for 134 weeks now, he is in high demand to go and speak at various events. We were extremely lucky to get him to come, seeing as he had just returned from Afghanistan 2 weeks ago. Because of his popularity, people from all over the state came to see him, some people even drove 10 hours to come. There were about 7 different school groups there too, all in all about 3000 people.

He spoke extremely well, mixing stories from his life and his incredible experiences with motivational speaking and a little bit of humour. He kept everybody's attention and was extremely humble considering all he had achieved. He was very up front about his failures, and modest about his successes. He had me teary eyed in quite a few places, and I truly felt like I was priveledged to be sitting there listening to him. It's not every day that you get to hear a Nobel Prize nominated person speak. So anyway I was quite inspired, and it was lucky because I wasn't even going to go originally but my Pop Culture professor Larry is giving us extra credit if we write a one page response to his speech. Even more reasons why I love Larry :) Everything else is fabby, first football game and tailgating on Saturday - very excited!

The One with Girl's Night

The rest of the week went pretty normally. On Friday, Becca and I went to International Coffee Hour where we hung out with lots of the internationals and INTAPP people and ate yummy free food. We also went to the doctor's to get our TB tests checked, which were thankfully fine. We then went on the red route to Walmart, but we ended up going on the wrong route the first time, the one that went to one of the main car parks. When we got on the correct bus, we spent an hour and a half wandering round Walmart. I then had my first ever Subway, which was sooooo good :) They have a Subway in Walmart, which is always handy :)

Saturday was fun, because we all went out for Emma's 21st birthday. We had a meal at Portofino, an Italian cafe at the bottom of Bodenheimer Drive. The food was excellent, I had a grilled chicken foldover, kind of like a soft pitta. We stayed there for a few hours, then moved on to Macadoos, a bar/restaurant on King Street where people had some beers and ice cream, and we just hung out and talked until about 2am. It happened to be College football day, so all the television screens had the Alabama vs Virginis Tech game on. The whole bar was cheering for Tech, but there was a couple sitting behind us with the most obnoxious woman ever, cheering for Alabama in the loudest screechiest most annoying voice, screaming 'LET'S GO BAMA' every 30 seconds. Sooooo annoying! But it was a fun night, and then we walked back up to the LLC.

Sunday was spent sleeping, then watching television until five when Becca and I decided we were hungry. Becca knew she had seen a KFC along Blowing Rock Road somewhere, but couldn't remember how far down it was. We met at the statue of Yosef, and walked down Blowing Rock Road for what seemed like quite a long way. We eventually found KFC, which was pretty much next to Walmart. We ate, then walked back. I looked up how far we had walked, just out of curiosity, and it turned out that it was 2.5 miles to KFC, and then 2.5 miles back. 5 miles for a KFC seems pretty extreme, but it tasted ten times better after the long walk :)

After the walk, we went up to Shada's apartment. There were about 12 of us, and she had invited us for a girl's night. Shada is from Yemen, so she was playing us lots of Middle Eastern music, from Lebanon and Yemen. It was really good to hear different music, and the Arabic language is actually really beautiful when you hear it sung. We had food, (pizza, chips, cookie dough and frozen yogurt) and soft drinks, and talked about girly things, generally having fun. We played music from all of our different countries, and also learnt some native dances. Shada tried to teach us how to belly dance, and we learnt a traditional Ugandan dance, the macarena, the cha cha slide, the salsa, and also a version of the Meringue. It was really nice to hang out with the girls for a night :)

The One with ???

The last couple of days have been pretty normal. I got an email from the international coordinator and she told me that my immunization records weren't up to date. I went to the health center and apparently I needed another MMR jab and a TB test jab. So I got those, which were painful but I'm the least squeamish person I know so it was fine.

Today I went to the library for an orientation tour. I am officially in love with the AppState library. One of my favourite things is the cyber cafe downstairs which smells like fresh coffee all the time = amazing! It has five floors, including a basement level. The atrium is an amazing cylindrical 'hole' in the building so you can look up all the way to the ceiling where there are beautiful sky murals painted, and around the edge are painted mountain landscapes. It's such a nice space to be in.

The bottom floor is the education library, but it also has really cool chairs and sofas which look like open books :) Also downstairs are amazing moving bookshelves, the writing center, the library for official government documents and the DVD library. The first floor houses lots of computers and the reference book section. The second and third floors house the main books, and the fourth floor has a more formal library which is also a silent floor. It seems like the library caters to every need, including a media center in case students need help with multimedia presentations and making documentaries, study rooms with smartboards for group study and also rooms with cable televisions in seven different languages for students who study language and culture so they can watch tv from a different country. It's a pretty special place, it has such a nice feel to it with comfy chairs all around, and each floor has its own colour scheme so everything is bright and cheery. The building's only about four years old which is great.

Then I had my 5.00 Popular Culture lecture with Larry Keeter which I can tell is always going to be interesting because he's a quirky guy. Today he started off by asking the class a series of questions including:

1) Who was voted the top entertainer of the 20th Century in a Time magazine poll?
2) What is the second most visited house in America?
3) What is the number one visited grave site in America?
4) What is the most collected stamp in American history?
5) Who is in the most requested picture of an American president in history?

I can tell you that the answer to all of them is the same. We talked about this person for about half an hour, then Larry announced that we were going on a field trip to Crossroads (which is a coffee shop in the Students Union) and we were going to watch a documentary on this person. Also to pay homage (as on January the 8th of next year he would have been 75 years old), we were going to eat one of his favourite foods - donuts. It was an extremely good documentary, showing clips of his life and how he got to be so famous.

Answers on a postcard people - who was it?

The One with Grandfather Mountain

Today we met outside the LLC (we being a group of internationals and INTAPP (International Appalachian, Americans who help out with the international students). We were taking three vans up to Grandfather mountain, which is above a town called Linville which is where they filmed a lot of Last of the Mohicans, and also where Forrest Gump was shown running (they have a corner called Forrest Gump corner to commemorate this). The drive took about 25 minutes from Boone, and we drove up to the visitor's center where we met a nice guy who introduced us to the mountain and told us that his family were some of the original shepherds of the mountain dating back to the 1880s.

We then had some food and looked around the gem museum, where they had BIG rocks including gold nuggets the size of my palm and an amethyst the size of a coffee table. The nature exhibit was good, we saw a bald eagle, two otters and four black bears. They were extremely cute, my favourite was the one who had streaks of red along his back and ears. You could feed them a special food, and they sat there on the ground looking just like Yogi bear.

We then drove up the mountain a little bit more to the Black Rock Trail parking lot. We then walked the Black Rock Nature Trail, which was about a two hour round trip, although we actually walked one hour there and had to come back the same way. It was rocky and hard going at certain points, but a very enjoyable, if muddy, walk. The internationals all returned muddy and tired but happy, and then we got back in the vans to head home. We drove a different way, along the Blue Ridge Parkway which is one of the most scenic drives in America. It was beautiful, green and lush. I can tell that in the Fall it's going to be even more spectacular.

The One with MLK Jr.

Today I didn't have a class until 5, so I hung around in my room and showered in our shower FINALLY!!! I had a couple of errands to run, so I walked down to the Convocation Center to pay my accommodation and meal plan bill, which involved me signing numerous travellers cheques for about ten minutes. Then I had to change my name, as they had spelt my middle name Rebeca with one 'c', and it's with two c's.

When that was done, Becca called me and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch. We went to the cafeteria and ate lunch, then she went back to East to finish some work and I went to check my post, buy post-its at the book store, and to the library to see if a book one of my professors had put on reserve was available (which it wasn't).

I went back to the LLC, and tidied up a bit. Then at half past four I set off for my Popular Culture class in Chapell Wilson Hall. It was once again full, with no spare seats once everyone was sat down. The professor walked in, a guy named Larry Keeter. He was one of those people that had a presence the moment he walked into the room. He came in, set down his bag with a picture of Elvis on the front and sat cross-legged on the desk. He then proceeded to tell us the story of how he started the Popular Culture class, and how App was one of the first colleges to do it as a course. After talking for about half an hour, he announced we were going on a little field trip. He took us to the Students Union, to the International Cultural Center, and we all sat down. We had a talk from the assistant director of the center, and then Larry talked some more about his life. Whilst the assistant director was talking, Larry had donned an Obama baseball cap and a large stars and stripes tie, complete with a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. It's hard to describe him in words but his character is just amazingly dynamic and fun, he has a real energy about him.

He told us the story of how he was at Colombia University in NYC, and then he transferred to Harvard. Whilst he was a student, the year before he married his wife, he went to Washington and was at the front of the crowd when Martin Luther King Junior made his 'I Have a Dream' speech. He went on to speak incredibly passionately about MLK, and Obama, and it didn't feel like a lecture, I actually felt privileged to be able to sit there and listen to amazing stories from him. He tells stories in a modest way, making light of it, but some of the things he did were admirable, and the stories had such incredible meaning. I can't praise this guy enough, even though he went on 45 minutes longer than was timetabled, I didn't mind because I felt like I was learning so much already. I can tell it's going to be an amazing class. I got a sub to go, then walked back to my room to finish my reading for tomorrow.

The One with the First Day

Yesterday was my first day of classes. First was Sociological Theory II, the one that I didn't take by choice but had to take because it's what they're doing this semester at Keele. My professor for this class is called Brad Nash, which makes me think he should be a country singer. It started with him just going over the course syllabus and textbook, and talking about the assessment methods.

We then left, and I went to my next class which was US Latin American Relations in Old Belk Hall with Rene Horst. He grew up in Argentina so he knows his stuff. We did pretty much the same thing, going over the course outline and then we watched a video about Latinos in North Carolina. It was set in a town called Siler City, which has a reputation of being very conservative, and they have strong views on immigration. Horst is a weird character, but I think this class should be fun as well.

Next I went for lunch, and then went to the library to print off some things. I then had History of North Carolina with Karl Campbell. This was an eye opener. He did some demographics of the class by asking us to raise our hands. When he asked all the democrats to raise their hands, there were three of us. When he asked all the people who were pro-choice to raise their hands, there were about seven of us. When he asked how many of us were atheist or agnostic, there were two of us. I don't know why I found this so surprising, I guess I just thought there was going to be more diversity being at university. This class was also fun, but I think it will be quite challenging.

I went back to my room, went for dinner with Meagan, Liz and Cody, then came back and took my garbage to the trash compactor. We watched some TV before going to bed.

The One with the Awful Smell

Today I woke up at 8.00 in order to get to the bookstore for 8.30. If you'd have seen the queue at 12 this afternoon, winding three times around the store, you'd understand why I went early. I had to rent three textbooks, then purchase seven which cost me an insane amount of money. My wallet is still in severe pain.

I then took the Appalcart back to my room with my heavy bags, and dumped them on my bed. Meagan was still asleep so I went downstairs to the computer room to check my emails and such. I then arranged to meet Becca and Yukino for lunch. We sat with a load of the other international guys in the cafeteria, then headed to the Club Expo (like the freshers fair at Keele where you join clubs etc.) We then wandered round finding various professors to get timetabling issues sorted, then went back to the LLC to chill for a bit. I skyped some people, and took another shower in Coleens room (hopefully my last). The maintenance guys were in when I got back, and they have sprayed the shower with some awful stuff which smells like a mixture of glue and nail polish, and it gives you a headache if you're in the room too long. We've had the windows and doors open all day and thankfully the smell seems to be clearing away now. We should be able to use our brand spanking new shower tomorrow. YAY!!!

Lectures start at 9.30 for me tomorrow, which I'm quite excited and nervous about. Once I get into a regular schedule I'm sure everything will work itself out. So off to bed, because I'm getting up at 8. My room mate has 8AM classes on four out of five days, and I kind of feel bad for her. She chose to do a major in Geology with a minor in Paleantology which I think is really cool Off to bed now.

The One with the Three Cups of Tea

Today we had a schedule of events planned specifically for people living in the LLC. First was a cookout, with burgers, hot dogs, salad, brownies and home made lemonade. This was fun because we all swapped tables and generally mingled with others in the LLC. Next was a discussion about the differences between high school and college, led in small groups of about fifteen (my group was led by BR Hoffman, who is part of the Wautauga college and extremely friendly). It developed into a discussion about a book the freshman had to read called Three Cups of Tea, which is about an American called Greg Mortenson who set up schools specifically designed to educate women in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. The discussion grew until we were debating the merits and disadvantages of military aid versus humanitarian aid. It got political, which was fun for me because I was the only International in the group and liked hearing the American perspectives on things.

We then had about an hour break and headed down to the Broyhill Music Center which is where a meeting was held between all of the people living in the LLC, to introduce staff members and RA's (Residential Assistants, of which there are three on each of the four floors of the LLC). We talked about setting up a fund to help Greg Mortenson set up more schools, and that ended the meeting. I headed to King Street, which runs through the centre of Boone, and got myself a yummy turkey sub from Jimmy John's. I headed back to the room and sorted out some stuff and talked to some people on Facebook. I've got to be up early tomorrow to get in line at the bookstore, because it will get crazy if I leave it too late.

The One with the Crawdad

So today was baseball :) I did nothing all day, except lie in and then go on Facebook. I did stop briefly to get food, then at five we were met by the bus to take us to Hickory, which is about a mile away from Boone. The drive was amazing - gorgeous and beautiful, because we were so high up in the mountains.

We got to the L.P. Frans stadium on the Appalachian bus (one of many regularly seen around campus running various sportspeople to games and classes to trips). We got a special mention from the announcer who noticed our bus and welcomed the international students from Appstate!! WOOT WOOT!!! The game itself started off with the national anthem being sung, whereby everyone stood up and the men took off their hats and placed them on their hearts. It sounds corny but being there with an entire stadium singing together was pretty special. The baseball begun with the Asheville Tourists batting first (a baseball game usually lasts for ten innings). Once we had figured out which team were which (both wore red t-shirts, but the Crawdads wore white trousers whilst the Tourists wore grey), we cheered at the appropriate times. It was quite fun, although there are lots of breaks and pauses for adverts and random messages from the announcer. One of the highlights of the evening was when they catapulted hot dogs into the crowd (yes, they actually got a catapult onto the pitch and fired foil-wrapped hot dogs into the cheering people). Everyone rushed to get them, and James (another English international) got it, pushing children out of the way and spilling beer on them in the process).

We got food and drinks, and sat around at the top part of the stadium overlooking everything. We met the mascot (a crawdad is kind of like a lobster) and had pictures. It started to rain so we all took cover, but the baseball continued through the rain. When it eventually slowed to a drizzle, the English ventured out whilst everyone else stayed under cover. We left early, at around the sixth inning, because there was a party that everyone wanted to get back for. But it was a really fun night. We got free beach towels emblazoned with the Crawdads logo, and all the way back on the bus we listened to a radio station from Charlotte (which played lots of British music including Sting, Elton John and Natasha Bedingfield).

The One with the Freshers

Today I woke up at half past eight when Meagan left, and couldn't seem to get back to sleep so I watched a film and went on Facebook for a bit. Becca asked me if I wanted to go for some lunch so we met at the Cafeteria and took advantage of our last day of free food, getting chicken sandwiches, fries, salads and large soft drinks. We then walked up to the post office where I checked my post box (which has a complicated combination turny-thing which I couldn't figure out). When I did i got a lovely postcard from Cat, along with some other stuff from the university and a Dominos student deals menu, complete with magnetic strip on the back so we could stick it to our fridge :)

I then went to the bookstore to get my books, but then decided the queue was way too long. We observed the freshers moving in with their families bringing boxes and bags and fridges and kitchen sinks, and marvelled at how little we had brought in comparison.

Then I took the Gold Route Appalcart which went right up the mountain behind us to the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center, and past Appalachian Heights which is accommodation for students. It was very pretty. I then returned to the room where Meagan was taking a nap, so I left her and went downstairs to the computer room for a bit. I then came back up and talked to a few people on Skype. Baseball tomorrow!!! I did my first laundry in America yesterday, which made me feel quite accomplished. Quarters are like gold dust around here though, because the machines only take quarters. The vending machines however take your Student ID cards which is extremely useful.

The One with the Tic Tacs

Today I had my meeting with the academic advisor called Jeanne D'arc Gomis - she's lovely. Me and Becca went together because we're the only ones from Keele, and we got very excited in the office when there were folders with all the itnernational partner universities on - and Keele was the biggest one! - just like the international office at Keele. It reminded us of home...

We finished that, then went to meet Marcella at East Dorm for breakfast. It was nearly eleven, and seeing nothing we liked very much, Becca and I decided it was ok to eat pizza for breakfast. Technically it was brunch. The univeristy have very kindly provided all internationals with free meals until Friday, so we're taking advantage of that and trying out all the different eating places. We then went to the bookstore to see which books we needed for our courses. Appstate has a rental system here where you rent the hardbacks you need free of charge and bring them back at the end of term - very handy so we don't have to buy loads of heavy books we couldn't take back with us anyway. The merchandise shop here is immense - everything from Appstate t-shirts, to flip flops, to mugs and fluffy Josef golf club covers (Josef the Mountaineer is the Appstate mascot - he's immense).

We then decided to catch the Appalcart (the free public transport system) to the Wal-Mart to get some supplies like laundry detergent and i needed a comforter for my bed. We also got some fake Sprite (called Twist Up) and fake Dr Pepper (called Doctor Thunder). Also we found Tic Tacs that were pink grapefruit flavoured, which got us very excited because they are also pink in colour :). We went back to Becca's room to chill for a bit (although we couldn't really chill because there's no air conditioning in East Hall). Then we went to meet some internationals for a bit, then went back to our rooms. The new season of Project Runway starts tonight so hopefully we'll be watching that on Meagan's TV :) Skyping the family is really cool, because it's like a free phone call. Missing them and all my friends but am having such a cool time, everyone here is so friendly and welcoming.

The One with the Blimpie

Today, we went over to the Great Hall for breakfast, and had more talks from random people, including outdoor clubs and culture shock. We had free lunch from Blimpie which is a sub shop. They were delicious. Then everyone else went for a library tour, and I came back to my room where there were some random maintenance guys working on our shower (which apparently is not going to be fixed until at least Friday... lame!!!)

I spent quite a lot of the afternoon in the computer room, and I had to go to our RA's (Residential Assistant)room to shower. We had a barbecue dinner in the Great Hall with all the other LLC residents (it was packed!) Most of the evening was spent talking to random people and watching Ghost Hunters International, because the new season started today. Four of us are sitting in our room now, watching TV and talking.

The One with the Broken Shower

So today we had to be downstairs by half past eight. I woke up at random intervals during the night because I was freezing cold. I literally slept in my hoodie because I was that cold. I had a shower (more about that later) and went downstairs where some lovely people from a local church had set out free breakfast for us. We then had a full day of talks about various boring University things such as taxes and visas. We had a break where we were given free lunch (pizza, chips (crisps) and cookies) by the local people from Boone. We then had more talks, then went down the millions of steps to the OBL (Old Belk Library) to get our internet sorted out. I then walked back up the millions of steps, and my room mate had moved in. She's called Meagan, and she seems really nice. We like all the same TV shows (plus she has a TV which i can watch), and we have a lot in common. I got some really really bad news earlier, so it brightened up my day that my room mate was really nice. We're just hanging out in our room now, and generally having a fun time. Oh, about the shower, we got to the room and there was a note saying not to use the shower, and apparently water was leaking through to the room downstairs, so hopefully someone will come to fix it tomorrow.

The One with the Family Holiday

Okay, so I've been on holiday with my parents and Adam for a week. Here's what we did :)

Day 1 - August 9th

We arrived at JFK airport in New York after a delay at Heathrow and then another delay landing which meant we were about half an hour late landing. We were all absolutely exhausted so we took a taxi to the Jolly Madison Hotel in New York, on the corner of 38th and Madison. It was quite a fun ride, NY has an atmosphere immediately as you step out of the airport. We had an hour's rest at the hotel, then wandered down 5th Avenue to find somewhere to eat. We ended up at a kosher deli called Ben's - i had a delicious turkey burger. We then wandered back to the hotel to shower and collapse into bed. The humidity in NY was ridiculous - permanent frizzy hair = not a good look!

Highlights

- a Spanish spiderman wandering around near Times Square
- a car with bullet holes in it driving around near the airport
- a very nice customs officer at the airport who let me into the country asked if we were from 'dur-bee' which made me giggle because he had only heard of us because of our failure of a football team


Day 2 - August 10th

Cleansing your face at the end of a day in NY is a scary experience - I was thinking that the filthy cotton pad was how the inside of my lungs would look like from breathing in all the pollution. We started the day by going up the Empire State Building. It was amazing to be so high up. I didn't expect the architecture in NY to be so diverse, I always imagined it would be skyscraper after skyscraper with no character, but each building is unique and different. We then went on the open top bus to Battery Park, but the queue for the Ellis Island ferry was too long so we went to the Rockefeller Center instead. We didn't go 'up the rock' but we walked around the underground mall with shops etc. We went back to the hotel for a rest, then went on the uptown bus which went around Harlem and Central Park. We took the night bus which gave us night views of Manhattan, but also went over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, where we stopped at a lovely ice cream factory. NY has a different atmosphere at night. I just liked all the pretty lights. Times Square looks amazing lit up. Our bus then proceeded to break down - cue angry Chinese bus driver arguing with our tour guide - then we had to wait half an hour to get a new bus. We were all zonked so we went straight to bed...


Day 3 - August 11th

We had breakfast at the Moonstruck diner - chocolate chip pancakes and OJ :) then we walked to the port where the Ellis Island cruise left from. The indoor air-conditioned seating was much appreciated after walking about ten blocks to get there! The cruise was very nice, saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, then we took the bus to Central Park, getting off at the place where John Lennon was shot, where there' a memorial which Yoko Ono set up called Strawberry Fields. We then went through the park to Bethesda Terrace where they were practising for an opera the next night. The singer was extremely painful to listen to. We lay on the grass by the fountain to watch the world go by. We then caught the bus back to Times Square, and walked back to the hotel after stopping at a diner for a sandwich. We put on the Discovery channel, and on came 'How It's Made' which is an awesome programme. We learnt how to make donuts, golf carts, pepperoni, baloney and BLIMPS!!! We went straight to bed as we had a long drive ahead of us the next day to Niagara.

Highlights

- an Elvis impersonator dressed in full glittery white jumpsuit in the diner sitting behind us, eating a banana and polishing his guitar. We left before he started singing though...
- friendly squirrel named Sam and a pigeon called Percy in Central Park


Day 4 - August 12th

Woke up early for breakfast, then took a taxi to Newark Airport to pick up our rental car. We went on the New Jersey Turnpike which is in lots of songs, so i proceeded to sing them to everyone :) We got to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side) after about ten hours with horrendous traffic coming out of NY, and lots of stops along the way. It was misty and dark when we arrived but we could see the outline of the falls, everything was wet from the spray.

Highlights

-'Welcome to Canada' sign
- a crazy guy who owned the diner we ate at talked to us at length about how he thought a civil war was going to break out because of Obama and his 'Socialist Takeover'. He told us he was going to but a shotgun (but only a small one so his wife could use it too). We nicknamed him Chuck. He had scary eyes...


Day 5 - August 13th

Wow - what a day! We woke up at 8 to Mum jumping up and down with excitement. She'd found a bus tour that took you round the main attractions at Niagara (on the Canadian side). First was the walk behind Niagara Falls. This was amazing, to be standing a few feet behind a massive wall of water was incredible. We then drove around the area while the tour guide told us about the area and the few people who have survived going over the falls - not many. We went to a butterfly conservatory, which was very pretty but i couldn't stay in there for more than 20 minutes before I got freaked out. There were some cute poison arrow frogs though. We went on the Maid of the Mist boat, which was absolutely amazing. Standing there while water crashed down all around you was pretty awesome. We came back to the hotel very wet but happy - the boat trip was what we called 'Ultimate Refreshment'. We went to one of my favourite diners called Denny's for dinner, then went souvenir shopping and watched the falls because they light them up all different colours at night - beautiful. We have nicknamed Niagara Falls 'Fallsvegas' because of all the hotels, casinos and shops lighting up the touristy area.


Day 6 - August 14th

We went to see the falls one last time in the morning, getting soaking wet in the process. The water's got loads of minerals in it, so it tastes pretty good. We drove from Niagara back through a little bit of NY state, then into Pennsylvania. We got onto route 6, which is a famous road in Pennsylvania which is beautiful and has lots of little quaint towns along it. It was extremely pretty and green, and there was lots of nature to look at including elk, moose and squirrels. We drove pretty much all day, then stopped at a motel in Port Allegany for the night - free wi-fi - yes!!


Day 7 - August 15th

We drove to a place where you can feed deer with your hands, apparently they like to eat Graham Crackers :) They looked just like Bambi - so cute! We stopped at Pennsylvania Grand Canyon which was beautiful. After many more stops and the help of my superb map-reading skills we ended up back at a hotel near JFK so I could catch my flight to Charlotte in the morning.

Highlights

- talking to a very nice pastor we met at the canyon who had visited Scotland 16 times
- stopped at an amazing diner which was all chrome and leather seats - like the proper old-fashioned 50s diners. I love quirky places like that - especially when the restrooms are labelled 'Guys' and 'Dolls'


Day 8 - August 16th

We got up early so I could finish packing. We then took the shuttle bus to Terminal 3 where I checked in my bag. We had a Starbucks, then I went through security and did a little bit of souvenir shopping before boarding the plane to Charlotte. It was a tiny plane- two seats on the left aisle, two on the right - so i was nervous about turbulence because it freaks me out, but it was actually a pretty smooth flight. I was met by two guys from Appalachian along with two girls and Bob the leader. They all seem really nice, so I'm now sitting in the Quality Inn. We're leaving at nine tomorrow to go on the two hour bus ride to Boone, where my ASU adventure will begin :)