#blue ridge

It’s probably worth mentioning, that because I’m very lucky, my Dad and Step-mum planned their family holiday (with my brother and sister) around dropping me off in Knoxville. I can see how this looks to be that I’m not completing one of the most pivotal parts of the year abroad (for many, their first flight alone), but I’ll have to do it eventually, and to be perfectly honest, it’s a pretty daunting thought and I’d rather avoid it for as long as possible!

The ‘first round’ of goodbyes were totally horrible. My mum started crying, which is always going to be sad (luckily I just managed not to cry myself), but despite a few worries she and my Step-dad had shared over where I was going, they were completely supportive and reassuring. I actually think the worst part of goodbyes is the panic, and the starting to wonder if you’re doing the right thing. Luckily, both sets of my parents were quick to remind me it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was also sad saying my farewells to my friends. Firstly, to my friends (mainly from work), at home in Brighton but also those from Swansea. At the end of second year there seemed to be a shadow hanging over the last few days, because with them graduating this year it felt like goodbye forever! All the girls from uni met up in Bristol for a party for another traveller (she’s off to Canada!), which was a lot of fun, but a somewhat bittersweet get-together.

So anyway, we eventually arrived (may be hard to believe I ever got there in time seeing as I managed to extend my 'goodbye line’ into an entire paragraph) in Atlanta, Georgia. Yep, Georgia. For the first part of the holiday me and my family were going to Blue Ridge, which is a tiny little town in the mountains. This is the view from my room:

It was such a nice location there, but there was a problem…massive bugs. The insects bad as it was, but then came the 'scorpion incident’. I think I’ve probably tired this story out as it is, so I’ll just give you a brief summary. I woke up one morning, started watching the Olympics in bed (the BBC stream, of course), felt something underneath me, on my back. I put my hand to feel what it was, and it was a scorpion. It then climbed on to my hand, where I was so crippled by fear I couldn’t do anything but internally scream, and then flung it off. BUT not before it managed to bite me! We all agreed it wasn’t a sting, because that is allegedly agony, but it did hurt! However, as I did fling it, we searched for ages to no avail, thus myself and my sister could barely sleep a wink again. We also did some white water rafting in Georgia, which was so much fun, heres a few of those photos:

For the final two days we moved on to Nashville, which was great. We all love country music so we couldn’t wait to get to its capital. I only had one full day in Nashville, so we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame (which had a Taylor Swift exhibit on! Love her). It was really interesting, there was different museum-esque learning about different artists, documentary screening on country music through history, we got to look around all different rooms with different possessions of Elvis, Johnny Cash, and the newer ones that we like, such as Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban. Heres some from the Taylor Swift section!

The next day we all drove up to Knoxville, apart from some minor panic when we thought we were a day early and I wouldn’t be able to move in, it all went fine. My dad drove me to Wal-mart to stock up, and then they left. Out of all of the goodbyes that was definitely the worst! The whole journey back from Wal-mart I was forcing myself to calm down and not cry, and I’d finally managed to, when my dad started crying! I’ve never in my life seen him cry, so it was absolutely horrible. It set me off and then my step-mum off, I was so sad for about 2 hours after that, but orientation kept me very busy indeed, so I didn’t have long to be sad! Orientation week to follow!