Disneyland!

We have left California and are now in Chapel Hill NC!

We spent our last day in Santa Monica with the other two kiwi girls that were in our room in the hostel. It was such a fun day! We hired trikes from this stall by the pier and then biked down the boardwalk to Venice beach. It was SO hot. I now have epic tan lines which are going to be very hard to get rid of! We watched some hard out people skateboarding at the skate park there and then biked our way back to Santa Monica where we had lunch and went our separate ways as Renee and Chrystal were heading back to NZ that day and we were carrying on to Anaheim. I am soo sick of burgers and fries!!

We took a shuttle to Anaheim and spent the afternoon in the hotel pool. It was so good - we were thinking of you all back home in the snow!!!!!

The next two days we spent at Disneyland. It was so much fun. We spent the first day in the original park and then went to California Adventure on the second day. The rollercoasters were so much fun! We went on nearly every ride that was open. My favourite was the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad  this is a video of it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17o4fRQ5m0E&feature=pyv&ad=9344848075&kw=big%20thunder%20mountain%20railroad and ignore the screaming. It's way more fun actually being on the rollercoaster than watching that. Obviously.. haha.

The next day we went to California Adventure which is the second park at Disneyland. We went on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror which was the most TERRIFYING ride of my life. You went up this creepy tower in an elevator and it was like the big dropping ride in Australia except this time you went up and down and up and down and it was all in the dark and windows would open and you would see how high you were and then it dropped you again. The photo of me and Knic is hilarious!! We are grabbing onto each other and screaming so bad. A little girl came up to Nicole and gave her a hug because she thought we looked so scared. There are lots of summer camps that go through Disneyland as well and we could hear all the little kids laughing at our photo haha. So shame. But it was sooo scary!!!

That night we had to catch the plane at 1.40am to get to North Carolina. We jumped on the Bus and a group of Italians were on there who were hilarious. We are beautiful ladies apparently and they wanted us to go stay at the Hilton with them but unfortunately we could not afford it!! We arrived at Chapel Hill at 11.34am local time so it was about a 6 hour trip across the country with a stop in Memphis for an hour where there was the most insane lightning storm. Alex, my mentor's friend picked me up who was really cool and we went out for lunch with Sarah, Knic's mentor and some other exchange students at a local Southern diner. We tried corn bread it was so cakey! Alex took me on a tour of the campus and then dropped me off at Granville which was really cool, she is so nice.

Guess what is legal in North Carolina.. riding in the bed of a ute down the highways. Brad, one of the guys on my floor from Australia bought a ute and a whole group of us needed to get to Walmart to buy some stuff for our rooms. So off we went in the ute and it was totally legit and normal to everyone! This place is crazy! But so pretty as well - lots of trees and old beautiful buildings.

Last night Amanda, Talia, Knicole, Kim and I went to a local restaurant called Spanky's where we had some pasta and wine and played trivia! It was so funny. American guys love their pastel polo shirts and beige pants waaay too much. We spotted about 15 of them.

Off to our first frat party tonight! Not sure what to expect haha.

Hope all is well at home

xxx