#year abroad
Well Tumblr, this will be my last post. It also happens to be my 20th post and I do love round numbers!
I’ve been back home for nearly a month and its finally sinking in that I wont be going back to Knoxville any time soon!
I had a great few weeks after Spring Break in the US. We spent time doing the usual things, I suppose enjoying the things we’d gotten so used to! Christian and I seemed to spend an awful lot of time at Jason’s Deli, our favourite lunch spot. We also went white water rafting on the Ocoee River, coincidentally on the exact same route that I went with my family on in August! Talk about full circle. We went to our final football game (kind of). It was actually a big open practice and our team played each other, so it was fun to get to go again this semester but not quite the atmosphere of the real games. We also celebrated some birthdays (Morgan’s and Phoebe’s) and therefore went to some lovely restaurants and had some really fun nights out.
Its so strange to finally be back. I did so many amazing things on my year abroad that I would never have dreamt of doing/even been able to do back here. I got to shoot guns, hike in the Smoky Mountains, go wake boarding, attend American football, basketball and baseball games, tailgate, ride a mechanical bull in a line dancing club, not to mention drive-thru a Starbucks! I met people from all over the world and got to travel to cities like New York, Washington DC, Chicago and had amazing experiences in all of them. I fulfilled my (laughable but genuine) dream of going to the Harry Potter theme park!
I also feel like a learnt so much, my grades have been better than ever this year (partly to do with the grading system, I admit) but I’ve had to learn how to cope with a huge workload and a totally different educational system. Being truly away from my parents has taught me so much about budgeting, keeping organised, dealing with visas/insurance/travelling alone etc. basically all sorts of things that I’ve never done by myself before. I think I have also managed to finally conquer coping in hot weather! 35 degrees is still not fun, but it makes me appreciate those mid-twenties days!
Living with a roommate and in such close quarters in an apartment has shown me a lot about compromise and definitely made me realise how much I like a bit of time on my own! All my roommates from both semesters have been different from me and each other in so many ways and I think it teaches you a lot about yourself (particularly the bad habits you have and never knew about!)
Being around Americans non-stop has been interesting. A lot of American’s completely shatter the stereotypes, however many of them also conformed. There were a lot of things I was wary about of the South and being there made me realise I was right to be. The South has the virtually universal-Christianianity that I’ve just never experienced before. I have literally walked to class every week with a man that yells at us excerpts from the Bible. I’ve seen campaigns that liken abortion to genocide. In many ways I think its a culture that I’ll just never understand, being “European”. However, that being said the South has an endless list of positives, from the famous Southern hospitality, to the amazing food and of course the AMAZING country music!
Overall I had a really great year. I’ve been home nearly a month and its funny how you slip into the same routines, living at home, working in WH Smiths, etc. I definitely miss good ole Rocky Top already! I’ve made amazing friends and two of them I get to go back to Swansea with which is really great. America has made me want to travel Europe so much, living in such a large country that is virtually the side of Western Europe has made me realise how little I’ve seen of things that are pretty much on my doorstep. Some serious money saving is in order and then thats next on the agenda!
Anyone who reads this and is thinking of going to America/UT I couldn’t recommend it enough! I’m free for advice anytime!
Another few weeks since I’ve updated, I’m virtually an old woman now so excuse me if I forget anything! I’ve had so much work to do at the moment, it seems like everyday I remember something I have to do just in time. On the bright side, my grades are staying pretty consistenly good so I’m pleased about that!
So the weekend after we went to Atlanta we had fall break, which meant that we got to have Thursday and Friday off as well that week. We headed to Asheville, North Carolina for the rest of Wednesday, and the full day on Thursday after, which was was really fun! I don’t have too many pictures (and the ones I do have I’ve stolen from Michaela!) but we got to do loads. When we first got there we checked into the hotel and then headed out for dinner. We went to this adorable Italian place where I couldn’t finish my chicken pasta so I took it back to the hotel. Much to the dismay of everyone I then spilt it everywhere and all we could smell was chicken. I got it all over my coat and I can still smell it now! The next day we went to the Nature Center where we saw black bears, wolves, coyotes and loads more, which was pretty fun, although I do find it hard to see animals caged up like that.
After this we went Downtown for lunch and to look around the shops, and much to our surprise, the whole city was completely packed out. Turned out that Mitt Romney was there campaigning! We were shocked that we hadn’t heard that before we left, but was really interesting, lots of Romney lovers, but lots of Obama voters there too. As someone obsessed with American politics it was pretty awesome! We went to all the different shops, and Asheville is really interesting and has a lot of independent, vintagey shops so was great to look around! We went to this cool tea room and it was so hard to decide what to have so I just asked the waitress to bring me anything. She came back with this lovely Jasmine Tea. I’m trying to force myself to actually try these things, even though I’m used to standard English breakfast tea (milk and two sugars!).
We spent the rest of the weekend in Bluff City back with Michaela’s family which was super fun again! Although we went shopping and my bank balance took a serious hit!
So THIS weekend we the next big game lined up, which I was really looking forward to. I genuinely fear that I’m turning American, I really like American Football and openly admit my excitement for each game! Its a problem. On Friday night we went to a ‘Losing With Dignity’ party, and as the name suggests, we were destined to lose the next day. The party was pretty fun, we learnt some more dance moves and taught some random Americans some British moves! Ironically, despite the title, a bunch of the football players actually turned up? I felt this was wrong in numerous ways, not least because surely they surely should’ve been asleep…
On Saturday we went to watch Lauren’s rugby match in the morning which was great, they absolutely thrashed Alabama so that was good news! Afterwards we went to Cracker Barrel which was so cool, and ate some 'real southern food’! Strangely, they have these giant draught sets outside for you to play!
We then got back and went to tailgate before the game, which is always fun, but we did it properly this time! First we went to the VolWalk which I have been wanting to do since we got here, where all the players and coaches walk through the streets. Its supposed to be really great but was a bit anti-climatic, although I think this was because we got there pretty late so couldn’t really see anything! After this we went through the tailgating stalls where we managed to pick up some great free stuff! They gave all three of us this great picture they took and printed onto a picture of the stadium, which I absolutely love. Also a T-shirt, buff, gym towel and Dierks Bentley’s album! (Here I am, wearing my new jersey, supporting Tyler Bray despite the fact everyone here seems to hate him! haha)
As expected, we lost to Alabama big time! They are the number one team in the country, so I guess its to be expected. It was still really fun though, we were next to loads of Alabama fans and a really drunk Tennessee fan who kept shouting “DIE ALABAMA, DIE!” which was amusing but somewhat worrying. We also become the fascination of some drunk guys who loved our accents and seemed to want to discuss every aspect of English life with us. They even had the nerve to challenge me on Harry Potter trivia! Me?! Needless to say, I came out victorious. On the Alabama game every year the band does the Circle Drill which is a really really complex drill and it was amazing to watch. Everyone told us it was fantastic, but it really was. It must take so much work to make a marching band work, as if one person makes a mistake, the whole thing would go wrong. If you haven’t seen it already, definitely YouTube it!
Heres a few pictures of the stadium. We have the most beautiful sunsets here and I’ve become somewhat obsessed with getting pictures of them!
Getting very lazy with blog posts but finally have some time! Last weekend we went to Atlanta for the night, as we had tickets to see Bombay Bicycle Club, and it was so much fun.
We rode the Megabus early on Saturday morning (6.30am, aah!), so we could get there for about 10.30, and then have the day to spend in Atlanta. It was SO cold on the Megabus, obviously we were all trying to sleep, but I was absolutely freezing as I was wearing a skirt so couldn’t really get off. Other than that the bus is great! Theres TV’s that apparently show films on the longer journeys, and theres free WiFi, so you can pretty much find something to amuse you on the way.
Once we got there we went to get breakfast and then dropped our stuff off at the hotel. We managed to get the Holiday Inn for $110 for the four of us, what a bargain, and they’re always really clean and comfortable. After we’d dropped the bags off, we went to look around the Olympic Park, which was really cool. It was really interesting as there was all sorts of monuments for the different athletes and countries. It was cool as there was a monument that included our very own Steve Redgrave!
We then went on to the CNN tour which was really cool. It takes you up the biggest free-standing escalator in the world (interesting stuff) into this massive globe, and then you make you’re way down to the bottom again through all the studios. We got to look at all the newsrooms, and watched one of the anchors hosting live.
We then went to the Martin Luther King site, which I’d already been to with my family a few years ago, but was still so interesting to see again. We wanted to walk there from where we were Downtown, but we ended up having to walk right through the ‘ghetto’ part of town, which was actually quite scary. I know that parts of Atlanta can be dangerous, but we just sort of ended up there! Anyway we got to the site and it was amazing. We went into the church that MLK grew up in and preached in until his death, which was so interesting. They have it all laid out in the same way it was when he was there, and theres a recording of his voice thats played on repeat, and it’s definitely a strange feeling as it is still sad. We went to the museum which is even sadder. I was nearly crying because there is these awful photos of his parents at his funeral which are just really hard to look at. The thought that all this was going on in my parents lifetimes is just so crazy to me, it definitely puts race issues into perspective. Here we are sat infront of he and his wife’s tomb:
After this we were (as you can imagine) VERY tired, so we went back to the hotel to get ready for the gig. I’d never heard much of Bombay Bicycle Club, but they were really really good! One of my favourite things to do is go and watch bands that I don’t really know, because I always think you like songs more if you hear them live. Also, we met one of the band members at the end, and as they’re an English band he was suprised at four English girls turning up to see them in Atlanta1
On Sunday before we got the bus home we went to this really cool underground mall for a few hours where I finally bought myself some new trainers and now all ready to get back to the gym! While we were at this mall went to Eddie Rockets which is the American diner and we had milkshake which I guess is very authentic!
On the way back to the bus stop we got to see the Captiol building which has some cool statues, for example of Jimmy Carter. Obviously we had such a great weekend but I was absolutely knackered by then and was pretty glad to get back to Knoxville!
We definitely seem to be getting into the swing of things here in Knoxville, as I have seen the return of the complete utter laziness that I adopt in Swansea! Seeing as this year doesn’t actually count towards my degree, I seem to be happy just doing the bare minium, my theory is that I should just enjoy the experience!
I’ve had my first few pieces of work back, and I’ve been doing well, although I am slightly paranoid they’re just being nice to me at first because I’m British and then my true grades will start to show as the year goes on. Oh well, can’t worry about that now! Every two weeks in one of our classes we have a ‘discussion group’ which is my idea of hell at the best of times, but I still haven’t got over how awkwardly British I sound everytime I have to talk, so I just stay quiet. We had this class yesterday, I said one thing at the start and then just said nothing else…at least he can’t say that I didn’t participate!
At the weekend we had our second football game, and once again it was really really fun. This week was an absolutely massive game against Florida (apparently they’re our biggest rivals, along with Alabama), we haven’t won in seven years so everyone was so “pumped”, as the Yanks say. It was also a big deal because 'College Gameday’ came to UT, which is basically where ESPN sets up on a campus and reports all day from there, again this hasn’t happened for a long time so everyone was loving it. It really is impossible not to get excited when everyone around you is. The Florida mascot is an alligator and all over campus there were pictures of beaten up alligators and what not, they really do take it so seriously! Anyway we went to 'tailgate’ before the game, which is basically everyone getting drunk, but because it’s such a massive game the entire campus was just chaos and all you could see was orange everywhere, even on The Strip there were hundreds of people. It’s interesting because students only make up a small portion of the crowd, people support college teams like at home we’d support clubs. The game was really fun, there were over 100,000 people in the stadium, so crazy. I love watching the band, but this time I definitely started getting the hang of the game! Once you get over how stop/start it is, it’s actually a really good sport to watch. Unfortunately, the Gators triumphed once again (fun fact: Tim Tebow played for the Gators), and although it really looked like we were going to win, they got a touchdown straight away into the second half and it all went downhill from there! The final score was Florida 37-20 Tennessee. #GBO though!
(Got this on the UT website, it was taken on Saturday night. Gives you an idea how massive the stadium is, and how loud!)
The day before yesterday I FINALLY bought myself a cell phone. I’d been putting it off as I’ve still been able to use my iPhone with WhatsApp and Viber but I got told off at the doctors the other day so thought I’d buy one. It’s not a bad little thing actually, but the charges get on my nerves here. On Pay As You Go you get charged to receive a text message, and your credit only lasts you a month, so even if you haven’t run out you have to top up again. Also, since I got here I’ve wanted to buy myself a proper football jersey (I feel this has become a 'thing’ since I became obsessed with buying rugby shirts in Wales), and since I found a kids one on sale (it’s still slightly big) I thought I’d just buy it! I bought the white one because I don’t think even I would actually wear an orange American football shirt in public!
On Tuesday night we went to Tin Roof again, which I really like! There was a 'trivia’ night, which is basically a pub quiz, and karaoke after. There was a car crash a few days ago, where a car literally drove right into this restaurant called Sunpot, and it became a bit of a running joke. At Tin Roof we met the driver! The best part about it was his name was Ronald Reagan! It really was, he showed me his drivers license, haha. After this we went our favorite place, Cook Out. It’s so cheap, like $1.49 for a big bag of onion rings! I’m growing pretty fond of all the places on The Strip, must admit!
Last night my chocolate from my Mum finally arrived! I’ve already been munching away on some good ole’ British chocolate. Oh, how I love Dairy Milk! Hersheys is good, but its just not the same. I know you’re reading this Mum, so thank you!
This weekend we’re off to Johnson City (Michaela and Shannon’s hometown) so this should be really fun, and I may have something more interesting to blog about!
So, classes started on Wednesday the 22nd, and even enrolling was a complete mission of a process. Americans have been able to enrol since the summer, but we weren’t until we got here, so virtually all the classes were full and we were all preparing to beg the professors to allow us into their classes. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to actually ask, after some frantic emailing, a few people dropped out of the classes I wanted so I was allowed on. We do 12 credit hours, so not too bad, but still less than I do at home! The modules I took were on the Civil War & Reconstruction, Law in American Society (having the Constitution on my Kindle is coming in handy for this), and then Political Culture, and also American Film (I was supposed to take a literature course, but because I’m lazy I substituted it for film). They’re actually quite a good bunch of courses, but I was really hoping to get on the Colonial America class, instead of Civil War. The settlements are one of my favourite parts of American history, but alas, I didn’t get to study them this semester.
I’ve got a few required texts for each of the classes, but have only bought 3 in total so far, but these still cost nearly $150! I had to buy them on my dad’s credit card, as Amazon wouldn’t take my card, much to his joy (not). It’s absolutely extortionate, but they test you differently here, and you really need to have done the reading, so I suppose I’ll just have to sell them on again. Anyway, the classes have been good so far, I absolutely hate talking in the smaller ones, as people stare at me like an alien, and the teachers do like to make a point of identifying me as British. One professor even made a joke about Brits having poor dental hygiene! If that’s not a way to make a foreigner feel insecure in a room full of Americans then I don’t know what is.
However, at the weekend we got to explore Knoxville a little bit, which was very fun. On the walk downtown we walked through the World Fair Park, where they have this lovely water feature and the Sunsphere.
Downtown Knoxville is really nice! It’s got a little square of shops and restaurants called Market Square, where they have bands in the evenings, and starting this month they show free films for you all to just sit outside and watch, and I definitely want to go to that (the first film is Footloose!). It was nice to start actually getting our bearings on where we are! It feels like you’re in a little campus bubble, when there is everything you could ever need on campus theres little reason to actually leave.
We went to a vintage store called Nostalgia, where the room was set up with little stalls and they all had different themes. You could buy virtually anything there! They even had this TV that they’d turned into a fish tank with all different fish in it (also an eel, yuck).
From there we went to the West Town Mall, which was great! I knew that everything was supposed to be cheaper here, but it really is a huge difference! I bought a pair of jeans from Hollister which would usually be about £60 at home, for $30! Its totally sad but it always makes me feel at home just wandering around a shopping centre. I also had my first Chik-fil-A, which I know is pretty politically controversial, but I feel you’d have to boycott everything to be politically correct all the time, and I’m English, of course I support gay rights! Duh.
Firstly, I should mention that I have no camera at the moment as mine was stolen on the very classy Wind Street in Swansea! Making do with my iPhone and a disposable at the moment, so will be sure to upload those when I get them developed.
When I arrived I found to my joy that we had a London Underground shower curtain, some Union Jack bunting, and this lovely map on the wall:
(It’s pretty suprising how patriotic moving abroad can make you!) All of these thanks to my new roommate (!!) Annabelle, who is a Brit herself, from Leeds, but studying in Manchester. I am so glad that I’m with someone from England because a lot of the other girls I know seem to be having issues with language with their own roommates which I’m glad to have avoided. I was pretty worried about having to share a room, however it’s been absolutely fine so far! I guess it’s just important to spend time together but also spend time on your own too?
We’ve had various types of orientation to help us settle. We have had meetings on the academic side, travel, visas, health insurance (will never complain about the NHS again), tax, and numerous more. In a way it’s tedious, but they seem to make it quite a good way to meet other internationals! Luckily, to relieve us from all the information they organised so many parties as ‘mixers’. Parties here are pretty different to home, the drinking age is obviously 21, but UT is actually a dry campus, so no alcohol allowed on site at all. It’s not a bad thing, I’m hardly a big drinker, but it’s strange to get used to. There are occasions when we’re out and I feel like an Archers and then remember I can’t! But anyway, there was a 'Pizza & Bowling party’, a Pool party, American Culture party (where I learned the Yanks call the 'Cha Cha Slide’ the 'Cupid Shuffle’. WTF? is all I have to say to that). They served us the nicest fried chicken! (Although I destroyed mine)
All the other evenings there was socials somewhere, the best part of this is that everywhere had free food! I literally did not cook a single meal for over a week. After the pool party we went to our first 'Frat party’ which wasn’t really a Frat party at all, but it did give us an opportunity to meet more American’s and gave me my first experience with Red Solo Cups…although they were mostly blue. (This is me and Christian who is also from Swansea, and Jade, Annabelle & Lauren)
I mentioned the Pool party which has reminded me to talk about the gym and the pool! The Americans have to pay a separate fee to have access to all the facilities, but because we are on exchange we have most of our fees waivered, so basically we get to use the most amazing gym totally for free! It’s huge, all the equipment you could want is there, and all the classes are free too, bring on Zumba! The same goes with the swimming pools. Theres an indoor and an outdoor, we’ve only used the outdoor so far as it’s been such lovely weather all the time, but theres sun loungers there and a nice closed off bit for us to just bob around. The best thing is its the building opposite our housing, so the pools and the gym are less than a minutes walk! In orientation they were very proud to tell us that Team USA trained in the UT pools, so I’m pretty tempted to just swim around and pretend to be Phelps.
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!
Right, so, my name is Georgia (I’m guessing I should listen to every adult ever when they say not to give out surnames on the internet!), and I’m in my third year at Swansea University. Luckily for me, this means I get to spend it in the US, specifically the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I’ve actually already been here nearly 3 weeks, so the first few entries will probably be backdated. I don’t expect to get many followers, seeing as this blog is only really for my own benefit, (and also my friends/family to spy on me with) but if anybody does come across this and has any questions, needs some sort of advice, just wants to send some anon-hate…ask!
