3 months

So today officially marks my three month anniversary of landing in the states. A whole quarter of a year, blimey. Buying cutlery and towels at Target during our first week here feels like years ago, yet on the other hand it doesn't feel that long since I popped into sainsburys, or caught a train, or bought a legal drink. oh england.

Last week I went to help at a 'pre-departure' talk for USC students who will be studying abroad in January. Lots were going to London and had questions about england, although worryingly out of a whole room of US students about to go and spend 4 months or so in france/england/ireland/italy/germany, only two (!!) people knew the name of their host-country's leader. And those two thought Cameron was our president and had no idea what his first name was. Anyway the disregard of these students for anywhere else in the world other than the good old usa is not what I wanted to talk about. During the talk, a graph was shown which illustrated the stages of culture shock that one supposedly feels when they move to a new country.

I am not at all convinced by this graph. Apparently, (although I'm not entirely sure what timescale goes with each stage) at first you are meant to go through a 'honeymoon' period where everything about the new country seems amazing. For me when it came to my feelings toward America, the first few weeks were anything but loved-up. They consisted of sorting out life in a whole new country; setting up bank accounts, unpacking and sorting out my room, buying bedding and furniture, and ultimately getting my head round the southern way of life. As well as the cultural differences, this period of time also meant starting afresh at a new school with a completely different academic structure and teaching style to what I had got used to at Warwick. It's true that aspects of america did seem a bit new and shiny (people saying y'all in every sentence, people wearing at least one item of clothing referring to cocks, stars and stripes hung up on nearly every house, huge cars) but these things were, for me, outweighed by the stress of being somewhere so different to home.

After the honeymoon phase comes an extreme dip in happiness. wonderful! Again, this wasn't something I experienced. Yes, there were certain days where everything went wrong and OMG I HATE AMERICA was my mantra but I had days like these in england. We all have these days, where just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and we all get through them. To be honest, there have been days here when I've felt at just about every point on that graph. Just about completely mundane things. For instance...I wake up in the morning freezing cold because of air-conditioning (culture shock). When I walk to class I'm no longer surprised by the sheer confidence of the squirrels here although I still can't get over how many of them there are (adjustment). It's not a term or a module or a queue or chips, it's a semester or class or a line or fries (mastery). And I can still sometimes find it hard to take in how pretty the campus is, especially now with all the leaves which are all sorts of oranges and golds (honeymoon).

I'm not sure if I've experienced culture shock or not. Obviously it's very different here but it would have been strange for it not to be. More than anything, spending so long away from home has made me realise things about our own culture that I was just completely oblivious of before. For instance, I don't think I'll ever criticise public transport again, mainly due to the fact it actually exists in england!

For me, what has stuck out the most in terms of cultural awareness has been my experience as an international student. Growing up in norfolk didn't exactly lend itself to meeting people from other cultures and whilst this did change when I went to warwick, the amount of people from all over the world that I've met at USC really has taught me loads about countries that in some cases I had never even heard of before (shameful I know - my geography skills are truly dire at the best of times).

The melting-pot nature of America, whilst possibly not so prevalent in the south, means that throughout the year Columbia has held greek, mexican, latin american, and italian festivals for the respective ethnic communities and whoever else wants to experience food, music and games from somewhere different. Through the university I've been to an Iranian dinner and an Indian showcase (including indian food which may have been my best meal since I got here), and most Fridays there's a free lunch for international students. I've had a henna tattoo and learnt to tie a turban, tried persian tea and learnt how to write my name in arabic. I've also got to talk with people from all over the world about their home countries and their impressions of america.

I think my favourite conversation with a fellow international was with someone completely unrelated to the university. I had to get a taxi to the supermarket late one evening last week and had requested a female driver but unfortunately there weren't any working that night so the lady at the office said 'sweetie pie dont you worry imma send you a guy I would trust my own kids with' and hung up. Very thankful for her thoughtfulness as this led to me getting to talk to such an interesting man, called Joseph, from Kenya. His daughter was studying in London at the moment and his brother also lived in england but he couldn't remember the place until our journey home when he suddenly mentioned a big statue of a bull and I realised he meant Birmingham, which again made me think it's a small world when you fly all these miles over the atlantic and meet someone whose brother lives 20 minutes from your university. I asked him what he thought of America and he said he liked it but found some things here pretty strange, like the fact that it was only the beginning of November but people have their Christmas decorations up already.

Since I've been here I have got to know some amazing american people, as I'd hoped to do when I left home all those weeks ago. But what I didn't expect was that I would also get to meet so many people from other places and I think that has been one of the most interesting aspects of my time here so far. It has made me want to travel even more than I wanted to before, so I can see some of the places that I've been told about.

To sum this up, these last three months have definitely had both ups and downs but even on the  days where I've been at bottom of the dip on the graph, the people I've met here have made it worth it!

xxxx

Backpacking in Shining Rock Wilderness

 Last weekend, armed with a rucksack of borrowed outdoorsy clothes and some trusty supplies of the dairy milk variety, I set off for Shining Rock Wilderness (how much does sound like something out of Lord of the Rings?) in North Carolina.

 In America, areas of Wilderness are, officially, 'areas where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain' and Shining Rock is the biggest one in NC. It really was beautiful; very bleak but in a good way.

We left early Saturday morning, and after a very early lunch consisting of my first ever subway - now wondering why I've never having had this in england as it was pretty good - we reached the car park for the trail. The last hour or so of driving had been through a noticeably different area, small houses tucked up in the woods, tiny shops in cabins and lots of people wearing camo and dungarees. Compared to the wide open roads of Columbia lined with chick-a-fila, walmart and endless other huge stores, it made a pleasant change.

We got out the van and used the truly hideous toilet - sneaky as it looked like your conventional loo but was actually just a hole above a large pit of rankness. After this, it was time for my pack to first meet my back and for me to realise that it wasn't just going to be a stroll around a pretty forest. Back in the day, I was a weirdly enthusiastic scout for quite a while and had not thought the hike would pose any problems but I totally underestimated the weight of half a tent and a sleeping bag. Once we were all strapped in I felt how I imagine a horse feels when they are made to pull a ridiculously large cart. Up a hill. Things got a bit better when I discovered how helpful the hip strap could be and after a while I did get used to it but i still don't know how people walk for weeks with these things on!
 

unfortunately we didn't get to climb Old Butt Knob

The first days hike was pretty short and we arrived at our camping spot quite early. Seeing icicles on our walk up had left me feeling even more confused about current American weather. In Columbia it will be pretty chilly when I leave for class in the morning but hitting 20 degrees by the afternoon, so I wasn't really expecting ice. After we put up our tents we climbed up to Shining Rock, the rock that the whole area is named after. The views from up here were pretty amazing and we got to watch the sunset from up there too. It felt like that bit in twilight when they are chilling up the massive pine tree just without any glittery vampires.

As soon as the sun went down, it got dark obviously and with this the temperature dropped biiiiiiig time. After collecting a giant pile of firewood we crowded round the bonfire and enjoyed some mac n cheese (or in my case endured - seems I need to learn to love this abominable dish as its pretty popular round here). However, fortunately the best was yet to come as it was at this point that I experienced my very first authentic smore. I've faked it with a digestive/marshmallow sandwich in the past but this was the real deal: graham cracker, hersheys and giant melted-on-a-twig marshmallow. Lushcious.

After a bit of fireside chilling we were told about toilet arrangements which I have to say made the smelly pit job i mentioned earlier sound positively delightful. As much of a lover of the outdoors I profess to be, the idea of digging a foot-deep hole with a trowel and pooping into it is something I don't think I'm ever going to be doing by choice. Especially not in a pitched-black wood that looked waaay too reminiscent of the blair witch project forest for my liking.

Once we were in our tents I realised just how much the fire had been responsible for keeping my body at a slightly warm temperature and it dawned on me that i was BLOODY FREEZING. Apparently it got down to about minus 1 overnight and as someone who requires an electric blanket even in the summer months, I did struggle to sleep. Fears of freezing to death were added to by my newfound anxiety regarding bears as I had absolutely no idea that bears existed in North Carolina until earlier that day. We had to put anything smelly, even toothpaste, into a bear sack so they wouldn't be tempted into our tents but I still couldn't help wondering what exactly I would do if I heard something in the night. Basically, by the time sunlight began to filter into the tent I was already wide awake and wanting to get up just to get moving and warm up. First time in maybe my life that I've been relieved to hear a 7am alarm go off.

After packing the tents up, we enjoyed a breakfast of oatmeal tinged with the previous nights mac n cheese, and then began our second days hiking. Before we got going properly we filled up our water bottles from a nearby stream using this pump thing to make it drinkable. Bear Grylls eat your heart out.

The second day was a lot hillier and quite hard at some points. This led to major layering issues as you would start off pretty chilly but by the time you reached a peak, the hat gloves, fleece and 3 tops were a little too much and so there were lots of clothes-changing breaks.

The trail we followed on Sunday was the Art Loeb trail, and again had some pretty amazing views, especially at the end. Most of the trees there had lost their leaves already, which was very different to Columbia where a lot are still out in their full greenery.

After some rather strenuous climbs we successfully made it back to the bus and headed back to USC. On the way back we stopped at probably the most southern place I've been to since I got here. It had a stuffed dead turkey on the wall and everything. I got the absolute bargain of  jacket potato with cheese (loaded cheddar tator y'all) with a side of green beans all for $4 which is about £2.50....If there's one thing I'm going to miss about the South it's the food prices!

Anyway we arrived back at the Strom, unpacked the bus and our kit and traipsed back to campus. It was such a lovely weekend in a beautiful part of America but I can honestly say my bed has never felt so comfy!

xxxxx