It's exactly one month since we landed in Charlotte, so I figured this would be a good time for an update. It feels like I have been here for so much longer than just one month - I'm aware how clichéd that sounds, but clichés stick around for a reason... maybe it is because of the warm welcome we had from everybody here, or the university's eagerness that we all be part of a community (I am officially part of the International Community, but I could also say I belong to the Living Learning Center community, as that is the name of the halls in which I live, or the Humanities community, or the Boone community, and so on... almost everybody is happy to welcome us in), but I think it is also due simply to being busy!
Term here starts much earlier than it does back at Keele, so I have already been in classes for three weeks. We also have more contact hours and assigned reading here. But apart from the necessary studying aspect of being at university, there's also many, many opportunities to fulfill my main objective and do a lot of stuff. Tourist stuff, community stuff, and other social stuff. I love stuff.
I'll do a quick summary, mostly of photos.
We landed in Charlotte on August 16th (exactly a month, see). We could see most of the city spreading out beneath us as we banked in to land, unfortunately I didn't take any photos. I had purposefully booked a seat away from any windows so I wouldn't have to look out and think about being high. Instead, I enjoyed the in-flight entertainment and tried not to annoy Lyane, who was sat next to me ('wow, we're so high! What's that sound? It's really not normal for the engines to fail, is it? Engines never fail, right? I'm not afraid of flying. I love flying. Really.' Etc). Anyway, I felt absolutely great as we banked in; I was proud of myself just for getting there, and I'll be proud just for getting back, let alone all the American stuff in the middle.
After spending the weekend there, we continued up to Boone, which is a fairly small town in the mountains, 3,333 feet above sea level. I could feel my ears popping on the coach as we climbed. Other places I have been which are a long way up from the sea include:
Grandfather Mountain, one mile above sea level. It's called Grandfather Mountain because, from certain angles, it looks like the profile of a bearded man. There was also a zoo here where we saw some beautiful otters, a cougar, and bears.
We were told it was an unusually calm day up on the mountain, but usually it is so windy that branches only grow on one side of the trees.
Howard's Knob (I know, but that's British slang).
It took us one hour to walk up here, and we could see almost all of Boone from the top, where we stopped for cookies and trail mix, otherwise known here as GORP - Good Old Raisins and Peanuts! Every year there is also a race up to this peak, and after climbing it myself I have to admire anyone who can run all the way up here. App State has one of the best running teams in the state, so I am told, because we're so high up in the mountains where oxygen is thinner than most places.
As part of the "This, Too, Is America" trips, a bunch of us internationals visited Linville Falls. Our driver was a really nice lady called Terri, and she let us stop to take photos whenever we passed something pretty. It took us about 45 extra minutes to get there, but it was worth it. We stopped at a lake for a bit of a photoshoot, the best I got was this one:
It was really much bigger than it looks here.
Eseeola Lodge is a beautiful hotel, only $500 per night to stay! This time, we just stayed long enough to take photos.
We tramped inside with all our hiking gear to ask for leaflets, they didn't seem too impressed despite my very best RP British accent.
Eventually we arrived at the falls:
We hiked up to see the view, and by the time we walked back it was getting pretty dark. Someone made an off-hand remark about bears and all of a sudden we could see all number of massive animals moving about in the dark bushes, so we hurried back to the van as fast as we could!
That is all for now, I will update again in a day or so as exciting things keep happening!
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