Thanksgiving!

If there is something worth celebrating in America, it is definitely their love for copious amounts of food. This is a tradition that I will most likely bring home with me - it was so good!

My first ever Thanksgiving involved a roadtrip up the East coast with "some of my favourite humans" a.k.a Ashley and Claire. Ashley actually studied in Dunedin last year and her kiwihost, Louis, is doing an internship in D.C. so we set off to pick him up. After a very entertaining night at his flat (all I can say is Marine, bunny and gun) we carried onto Connecticut to Ashley's house - but not before the 50 mcNuggets challenge.

If there is something that must be achieved while in America, it is obviously the challenge of eating 50 chicken nuggets. For the low price of about $10 I'm not sure why more people don't indulge in this delictable feast........

Yes, we managed to finish them. It was a struggle but we are no quitters.

After rolling out of Maccas we carried on our merry way...

Barbara, Ashley's Mum/Mom, warmly welcomed us into her home and it was SO nice to be in an actual home, not a dorm or a hostel. We arrived pretty late (it took us around 8 hours to get to Connecticut from DC) off to sleep in a REAL bed it was!

The next day was Thanksgiving! And how thankful we were for Barbara's cooking! We had an 18 pound Turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes (Claire's speciality), sweet potato and marshmellow casserole, green beans and water chestnuts and lots more! My favourite dish was the green beans and water chestnuts - can we get water chestnuts in NZ? They are so good!

A special mention must be made here to Tucker, the Pileika's dog. He has, what one may call, a certain affection for me.

The next night, we thought it was necessary to dance off all our excess weight from eating the entire day so we jumped on the train down to NYC. Here we met up with Louis' and Ashley's friends from when Ashley and co. were in New Zealand. It was good to be able to see the nightlife side of NYC this time. At one bar you could even do shots out of syringes.. Ashley's fear of AIDS has gone up ten fold.

We managed to stay out all night long, a fitting tribute to the city that never sleeps. At 5.30am we caught the train from Grand Central back to Conneticut.. we are now offical nomadic travellers it seems..

Catching up on some sleep in the Connecticut train station

That night, we went to Boston! We ate some traditional Boston food such as clam chowder (so good!) and Boston Baked Beans - nothing on Watties. It is a city that I definitely want to go back to as we only saw it at night time, I wish I had a million more days in this country.

In Boston we saw this amazing group of street performers who jumped over about 5 people, Louis included. This video shows it about halfway through, sorry it's on its side.

On Sunday we started a 15 hour car ride home, arriving back at Chapel Hill at 4am on Monday morning and to a stackload of assignments. Luckily I'm avoiding reality again this weekend and heading to Harry Potter world in Orlando! Wingardium Leviosa! Oh yeah, I'm a little excited.

Claire, Barbara and myself outside the Pileika's house

I'm sad to say this is one of my last posts in America, I'm in the process of finalising all my documentation and completing exams. However, I'm so excited about Europe!! My contiki is all ready to go - now to pack my life into a little suitcase again. Those who know me personally will know what a struggle this actually is for me!!

But life is always better when travelling.

Hasta luego mis amigos, un beso y abrazo grande

The Big City

In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh

There's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York!

Wooo! I am back from the concrete Jungle!

NYC is the most amazing place, it is full of anything and everything you could ever want in a city. Knicole and I made it to our 5.30am flight and flew down into New York just as the sun was rising - it was very pretty. After thinking we needed to get a shuttle to our hostel, we realised we could walk from Grand Central Station and we started our first day of adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Concrete Jungle!

The first place we decided to check out was the Rockefeller center. There was a crowd gathered around the NBC News Center so there must have been someone famous in there. The christmas tree is unfortunately being lit next week so we didn't get the whole effect but the iceskating rink was in full swing and it was fun watching everyone skate around. After a quick lunch we went up nearly 70 floors in 43 seconds to the "top of the rock" and this view:

It was a great view. After a look around up the top we went to central park where we hired a horse and carriage and gallivanted around while getting excited about places we recognised from movies. At this point we were feeling extremely tired from all the walking around and the fact we had only had one hour sleep in 48ish hours we took a much needed nap back at the hostel to rejuvinate for the night ahead!

We decided that we wanted to experience Broadway so after grabbing something to eat from street vendors we ventured into Times Square and the Theatre District. We saw Mary Poppins and seeing as it was 7.45pm we went to the box office and asked for their cheapest tickets... $65 each. After much complaining about how we were poor students with no way of justifying that price the nice young man behind the glass gave us seats in the Gods for $30ea. Sometimes it just helps being a girl!

Mary Poppins was amazing! The sets were fantastic and the woman playing Mary Poppins flew into the audience - Knicole and I want to start tapping.

After the show, we skipped through Times Square and got some cocktails at Bubba Shrimps. We also went shopping in Forever 21 which stays open constantly it seems.

Managed to find our way home to begin Day 2!

Day 2 involved heading down to Wall Street and checking out Occupy Wall street. It was pretty crazy, this sign I feel sums up the entire feeling and mood of the protest:

While we were down in the Financial District we also saw some really old churches - it's amazing what actually survived the 9/11 attacks. Day 2 of New York was a pretty sombre affair - we went to Ground Zero, the 9/11 memorial site and some churches around the area that had memorials to the victims of 9/11.

It was very surreal to be standing in a place that I have seen on the news and tv for ten years. I could only think of the images I had seen of dust and debris covering everything - and now there are fountains and trees. I remember I was eleven years old and Mum ran into my room and woke me up and said the World Trade Centre has been hit - I had no idea what this was at the time but soon found out. Seeing as it happened during the middle of the night for New Zealand, I remember we spent the entire day at school talking about terrorism and what it meant. I would probably pinpoint 9/11 as the time I started to take an interest in world events and the realisation that not everyone likes each other in the world! World peace, brothers and sisters.

After the 9/11 memorial, we headed down (maneuvering our way through the subway system skillfully) to the Staten Island ferry which we had been told to take as it was free and we could get to see the Statue of Liberty this way. By this time it was sunset and so we got some great postcard shots:

After this, we went home and got ready for another Broadway show - Billy Elliot! It was AMAZING. The little boy that played Billy was fantastic - his fouetes were brilliant and he did a no-hands cartwheel. The boy that played Michael was also so great - he was hilarious. Definitely stole the show. The music was written by Elton John - it was great. I could spend my entire life just going to Broadway shows.


After the show, Knicole and I went out for dinner and cocktails before meeting up with Louisa and her Mum who are on a shopping trip in NY for Lou's 21st! It was so good to see another New Zealander!

Day 3 was our last day :( we went shopping in SoHo and we met up with Yosuke, our exchange student from 2001! It was so good to see him and to catch up before we caught our flight back home to NC!

Tomorrow I am off again for Thanksgiving, Ashley, Claire and I are driving up to DC before carrying on to Conneticut to spend Thanksgiving with Ashley's family.

Hope you are all enjoying the start of Summer - it was FREEZING in New York - NC is simply tropical compared to up North!

xxx

P.S if you click on any of the photos on this page it will make them bigger.

Pavlova!

 

I made pavlova! We made a video for you!

NC Bound!

I'm currently just chilling out at JFK airport waiting to board my plane in 20min so it's update time!

Vermont was fantastic! I loved being able to see mountains and lakes - reminded me a bit of home! I stayed with my friend Marea who lives in Middlebury and goes to university there. The campus is beautiful! It only has 2000 students and is a very liberal and artsy campus.

Generally I spent the weekend just hanging out with Marea and getting to know her college life which was lots of fun. Vermont is very cold! I also got a language lesson from the taxi driver on the way out to the airport about the meaning of Vermont - apparently there is some famous guy that couldn't speak French properly so instead of saying "montagne-Verte" for green mountain, he said ver-mont. I guess it just stuck! 

The day I arrived, we went to Ben and Jerry's which is this delicious icecream shop in the States! As it was Marea's room mate's birthday, the challenge was put forward that we eat an entire Vermonster.












Yes, this entire bucket is what four of us ate. Well, nearly ate it all. It was delicious for the most part, but I think I am put off Ben and Jerry's for a good while now. We rolled out of the store and headed for Middlebury, with Marea and I in a definite icecream coma for the majority of the trip!



Here are a few photos of the campus

This is called the Chateau. It is the French department building, I thought it was cute.

As you can see, the campus is very green and sparse. It was great to see another college town other than Chapel Hill and to compare the two.

OH MY GOD, I haven't told you about the FOOD! Amazing. AMAZING food! Everything is organic and they have real bread in their dining halls! Such a change from the Agora's sugar filled everything. We went to a talk from a farmer that is on the documentary Food Inc. and in Michael Pollan's the Omnivore's Delimma which are two texts I am studying for my American Studies class at UNC. He didn't really say anything new, except a lot of stuff to do with how young people don't know the difference between straw and hay and he brought up a lot of American politics at which point my mind was wandering to other things.

I have to board my plane now, hope ya'll had a great weekend!

xx

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

Apparently the middle of the night calls for blogging. I am currently waiting for my 4am taxi to the airport to see Marea in Vermont! So to kill time.. and not fall asleep.. I thought I would chuck in a wee blog entry :)

This week has been rather pointless as I have had copious amounts of schoolwork to do which I will not bore you the details of. However, it was Philly boy's 21st on Wednesday so we went out to dinner to a Mexican restaurant called Bandido's before going out to this bar called "the library" (great name) and Phil had his first taste of alcohol... just going to add in here that Phil is Irish. Because this is an unneccessary blog post which calls for unneccessary facts.

More facts! My favourite thing an American has told me so far...

"Oh New Zealand! My friend went there on a missionary trip to help ya'll out and bring peace to your country"

Um. Thanks mate. Pretty sure we're a rather peaceful bunch?

Classic. I love this country. But actually. I don't want to come home!

This trip to Vermont is my first time travelling ALONE in the States. Knicole and I make a great team when travelling, she leads me through airports and I hold her hand on the plane. I'm just hoping I don't get lost in the airports without her.. being in the northern hemisphere I still can't figure out which way is north, or probably up for that matter. You would think it's logistically simple, but alas my dear friends, my brain works in mysterious ways.

Anyhoo! Staying awake for this taxi is harder than staying awake in my phonology lecture..

I've booked my flights home - unfortunately. I wisssssh I had unlimited money and could keep travelling forever. I have met, as I have already said before, some of the most amazing people in the world and I couldn't be happier :)

Ok, before I get all sentimental on you (Alice I have also just written you a 21st birthday card, beware I am extremely tired and it gets rather excited and wistful in some parts) I shall leave it at this, you lot already think I'm weird enough!

Enjoy the sunshine - I'm headed north to winter! Joy. At least I am used to it! Oh and I'm home on February 1st. Mark it in your calendars!

Last Weekend in Chapel Hill... wait, what?!

I just had my last weekend in Chapel Hill until December!

I'm leaving on a jet plane to see some of America these coming weekends, too bad about schoolwork!!

Next weekend I'm off to see my friend Marea at Middlebury in Vermont where she goes to university, then up to New York the following weekend with Knic, heading to Conneticut for my first American Thanksgiving with Ashley and her family and finally, the weekend before exams (oops) we are going to Orlando! Harry Potter world!!! So excited. Then hello Europe! Ireland, Denmark, Spain and Switzerland before I'm homeward bound and off to Rippon festival in the SUN. I can't wait to get back to Summer! But I can, I don't want to come home just yet!! Sorry guys, I'm having too much fun :)

I can't believe how seriously fast my exchange is going!

Best thing I've ever done.

A friend made this documentary about the exchange students for one of her classes, Ben may exaggerate a little.

Fall: A walk around Chapel Hill