mind your manners

Even though it's been about 30° every day for the last two weeks, I have managed to catch myself a cold. In England this would be no big deal, and it's no different here except for when you sneeze in class. I had my first in-class sneeze today and I would estimate 5-10 people swung round and shouted BLESS YOU in my face. No exaggeration. It was as if they had some sort of reflex reaction to my sneezing or that there was a prize for whoever could say it quickest and loudest. It was hard not to laugh as it was so unexpected but I did somehow hold it together. In my next class I sneezed twice and this happened both times, so it's definitely a thing here. Which brings me to the point that, from what I've seen so far, English manners and American manners are very different.
South Carolina has actually been voted the most polite state in the USA so maybe I'm experiencing extreme levels of it, but people here really are polite, sometimes overwhelmingly so. I've definitely questioned the genuineness of some people's 'southern charm' but that's probably just my inner British cynicism.

I'm not sure why the stereotype exists about British people loving to queue, as unsurprisingly I've found that Americans do also have the ability to stand in an ordered line and wait to be served. However, in England, it's kind of an unwritten rule that you don't talk to other people in the queue, unless it's a necessity. About a year ago I was waiting to pay in Topshop and the girl in front of me suddenly projectile vomited everywhere and admittedly on that occasion I turned to the person behind and suggested we get out the way, but that was an exception. Here on the other hand, it is totally normal for the person next to you in the line to strike up conversation. The worst thing about this is that because the weather is always nice you can't use it as your default discussion topic and instead have to actually engage in real life conversation with a total stranger. Not very english at all.
Another thing, and this one I'm not complaining about, is the somewhat chivalrous nature of most of the guys here. You will always have the door held open for you, and I'm still getting used to the fact that people call me ma'am!
Staff in shops and restaurants are also unreservedly chatty; last week when we went out for a meal our waiter invited us to go and see him perform in Hamlet that evening. However, tipping here is very different, and you're expected to tip between 15 and 20 percent, and even tip bartenders. At first this was a big shock, as a tapwater-ordering vouchercode-hoarding student, voluntarily giving this much extra just didn't feel right. However, they do go all out on the service, and the food itself is a lot cheaper so I'm slowly getting used to it.
Perhaps as a contrast to American manners, I've noticed now how much I automatically apologise, just out of habit. Although repeatedly saying sorry, oh thanks, sorry etc is inherent to most exchanges in England, here it's not and I am constantly getting told by shop assistants that, 'it's ok, you haven't done anything wrong'.

I'm still not sure how much detail I'm meant to go into when the lady at the bagel shop asks me how my day's going, and I don't think I'm ever going to be the one who initiates conversation when waiting to pay, but maybe when I'm back at Warwick and someone sneezes mid-lecture I'll yell my blessing at them and see how it goes down. (or maybe not)


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ps. having just googled the origins of saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes, the wisdom of wiki has told me that it likely comes from one of three things.
1) when you have the plague a key symptom is sneezing so you are literally being blessed in the hope you will survive
2) when you sneeze your soul can be thrown out of your nose, or the devil can sneak in and saying bless you acts as a shield against this evil
3) when you sneeze your heart stops and people saying bless you gets it going again

so maybe it's not politeness but just that people here are more wary of the plague/the devil/sudden cardiac arrest than in england, who knows?

I haven't been very organised with this blog so am yet to write a post about the first few weeks here but hopefully I will get round to that some point soon. Anyway, today was Labour day and this meant a 3 day weekend so three of us from warwick decided to venture off into North Carolina and spent a few days in the mountain town of Asheville!

Getting to Asheville was my first experience aboard an infamous greyhound bus and it did not fail to impress. Having almost acquired heatstroke walking to the greyhound station we picked up our tickets and began to wait until our bus arrived. Looking round the decidedly dodgy station, I couldn't help but notice a large number of weird net bags placed on random chairs. They were like fishing nets with various objects in; usually some letters and some clothing. There was also an absolute abundance of slightly rough looking men in blue shirts and beige trousers. After pondering the situation for a while I concluded that 1) the men were bus drivers and there was just a lot of buses that day and 2) net bags were all the fashion in South Carolina. Feeling glad to have worked out these mysteries I told Helly, rather loudly, about what (I assumed) was going on. It wasn't until I was boarding the bus, along with about 25 of the blue shirt men that someone in front of me mentioned the words 'release day' and the penny dropped. Not bus drivers at all but freshly freed prisoners! What fun. And so our four-hour journey was spent on a coach with a convict-citizen ratio of about 5 to 1. Good times.

Anyway Asheville itself was really good and I would definitely recommend it if you are in the area. The town is nestled at the foot of the blue ridge mountains and has a completely different feel to Columbia even though its only around 3 hours drive away. It's a pretty hippie town with lots of kooky gift and clothes shops and some amaaaaazing places for food. We got to experience our first 'biscuit' which does not look like this....

But in fact like this!

Which may seem a bit underwhelming for such a popular food thing of the south but once you get some blueberry jam on it, it is actually lush. Though still not quite a hobnob.

We spent the first day wandering around downtown including spending an inordinate amount of time in urban outfitters (but it was nice to have some familiarity!) and on the second day were kindly given a lift by some other people staying at the hostel up into the blue ridge mountains. 

We walked up the 'Craggy Gardens' trail.

This was amazing and the views were insane. The photos don't do it justice...

The blue ridge parkway is pretty famous round here (and I think in North America in general) for being a really scenic drive and we saw tonnes of motorcyclists and also lots of mental cyclists - the inclines were massive. As well as the road itself, there's trails everywhere and we spent a few hours surrounded by bees and butterflies hiking through the woods which was a nice change to the traffic and humidity of Columbia.

Asheville is a pretty cool town and prides itself on being the beer capital of North America. There are breweries everywhere, lots of good places to eat, and lots of cool murals on many of the street corners.

There was also a lot of street musicians around the town, including this absolute ledge of a spoon player...

After three nights in our hostel (it had a dream diary for guests to write in and a paper mâché giraffe as the centre piece of the lounge, so not sure we quite qualified as alternative enough to stay there but hey ho) we said goodbye to Asheville (for now) and boarded the greyhound home (no felons this time).

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halfway through july...whaaat?!

exams are over, and I’ve moved out of my second year house completely, meaning my room here at home is now physically impossible to enter. lots of tearful goodbyes have been said, and I’ve had a lovely week away in greece to get some beach time in the sun. however the increasing speed with which time seems to be passing means that it is not very long at all until i go

with just over a month left in england I am beginning to freak out a little about things i still haven’t done, like sort my phone/bank/flights/modules and today has been the day to get started with getting these done. woo.

However South Carolina being 5 hours behind means that I couldn’t make any question filled phone calls to the university until after lunch and the combination of this and the weather being absolutely lush has resulted in me spending most of the day pretending to do stuff but actually procrastinating online whilst sunbathing out in the garden, the wonders of wifi hey.

anyway i have worked out that sounding very british, very worried and very confused on the phone is the best way to get help, and help is just what i needed when i found out this morning what modules i have been allocated, and realised that I have classes late every evening except one, and that two of my modules are almost the same. waiting to hear back about whether I can change so fingers crossed!

me when I found out my timetable

however one thing I actually have ticked off my to-do list is getting my visa sorted….

So last week I had a rather enjoyable visit to the US embassy in order to get my visa approved.

I had envisaged the day being a leisurely one, involving a not too early mid-morning appointment and maybe the rest of the day spent in London, which for country lovin me is still all quite novel and big so I would have been happy to have an afternoon wandering round.

However this plan was obvs not meant to be and my day was split between many hours spent trying not to pass out on public transport and many hours in the truly dismal place that is the us embassy waiting room.

Having booked my appointment for half 11, when it came to booking my train down there I realised that to get there in time from the middle of nowhere aka my house I was going to have to leave at 6.45 which was not pleasant.

Other than the early start the day started off quite well and it wasn’t until I reached London that I realised how hot it was and also that when London is hot the underground is about a hundred times hotter. Having paid a tenner (!!!) for a locker to put my phone in (no electronic items in the embassy apaz) I boarded the central line to marble arch! How jolly fun! Not. It was an actual sauna and full of businessy people who all looked like they were regretting choosing jobs in which suits were mandatory workwear. The little man/voice thing on the tube kept reminding everyone to drink lots of water which was nice and thoughtful but I didn’t have any so it just made me feel more hot and bothered and also scared of impending dehydration and what exactly they would do with you if you did suddenly faint all the way underground?? Can you tell I’m not from London?

Anyway eventually I got out of hell and emerged on Oxford street. I had come prepared for once, armed with a map and instructions of how to find the embassy. I do not know if it was me or the map but anyway I had to ask three people where it was and was just about to ask the fourth when I eventually came across it. My navigation skills had obviously dwindled in the heat.

The embassy is pretty scary looking, it’s massive and quite imposing and also surrounded by policemen with real life guns!

i had forgotten it had this giant eagle on top which i feel definitely added to the overall welcoming and inviting nature of the place

once you’ve showed your papers and been scanned (by a seriously terrifying cockney security guy) you sort of have to do a little parade around the building along a path with lots of guards and flags.

I think the walk into the embassy past all these flags and guns was probably the best bit as after this the day definitely went downhill.

Basically you go in, your documents are checked and you are given a number and told to wait in the hall until your number’s called out.

This didn’t sound too bad until I realised that they don’t actually call your number out, it just pings up on this giant screen up one end of the hall thus squandering any hopes you might have had of trying to read your book or actually look away from this giant screen for more than about ten seconds. 

I should also mention that although the us embassy is extremely well supplied in terms of technology ie finger print scanners all over the place, it is yet to discover aircon and two small fans were not ok to try and keep about 400 crowded people cool.

Anyway the waiting period was not what I’d call enjoyable but after about 45 minutes my number got called up, my documents were checked again, and I was told to return to my seat and wait for my number again. This second waiting time lasted what seemed like for EVER but was in actuality only a mere two and a half hours of fun. Eventually I had my ‘interview’ which was just a few questions about what I’m going to be doing next year and that was that! getting your visa is basically proving your ability to wait for a really long time, maybe to just show them how much you really want to go to america.

As I left the aforementioned scary security man was googling ‘five finger death punch’ which really worried me for quite a while. Who was this guy? So I googled it too expecting to find some weird video of how to carry out this deadly move but phew instead I discovered they are just a strange looking band so the guard was not that murderous after all. 

However the fun was not over as I then had to re enter the furnace of the central line to get my phone from the locker and then get back onto the same dreaded central line to exactly where I had just come from to get my bus home, an extremely dejavu-ey journey which made me feel I was going a little mad.

Anyway finally with 4 minutes until the bus left I ran around Victoria coach station like a crazy person until like some miracle I heard a broad norfolk accent asking ‘how you gettin orn’ and i knew I had found my bus (this did actually happen and I think if I hadn’t have heard him I probably would have missed the bus) so on I got.

Nothing of much interest happened after this (I realise that actually reading back nothing of much interest happened the entire day apart from it being long and stressful) and I eventually got home in one piece, with my passport being posted back to me a couple of days later, all officially stamped with my visa woo!

To finish off this tediously long ramble, if you are a student who needs to apply for a visa then I would say the following…

- Be prepared for a lot of form filling. They are all straightforward but there are a lot of them to fill in and it can get a bit confusing as they tend to have weird unhelpful letter/number combinations as names.

- Be aware that getting your visa is not a cheap process. You have to pay your SEVIS fee and your MRV fee which for me i think totalled around $300. There’s also the cost of a locker for your phone if you’re going on your own and the money you have to pay for your passport to be sent back to you. I went for the cheapest option and this was still £14! If you are applying for a travel grant you can claim any visa costs back on that which is what I’m intending to do so fingers crossed i will be able to get it all back.

- Go through the checklist of what you need to bring to the interview and go through it thoroughly! I didn’t realise until the evening before that the embassy hadn’t actually emailed me my interview confirmation letter which is the most essential bit and I very nearly went without it which would have been truly dismal. There’s quite a few different bits you need to have with you so it’s worth double checking.

- Be prepared to wait! Take food water and easy reading because if you have my luck you’ll be in there a fair ol while and it gets very boring very quickly

well that was long and kinda made me stressed just writing it but at least that’s one part done. hopefully the rest of my to-do list will not be as wearisome although having looked at flight prices earlier I don’t hold out much hope.

however believe it or not having read this gloomy and depressed sounding post, I am really looking forward to going and the thought of this……

…is definitely adding to my excitement!
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