First in Flight

Welcome to North Carolina

First in Flight

So I've been here a few days now and things have been pretty hectic hence the lack of an update to let you all know how things are going. 

I spent the first few days at the beautiful Carolina Inn. It's an amazing hotel that adheres to the full traditional southern style, which is kind of like a relaxed and happy version of Luton Hoo or the Manoir. They call it a cross between southern antebellum and colonial revival, but it reminds me a little bit of Haileybury. Actually... quite a lot of the buildings have that Georgian style to them that I associate with the front of Terrace and the entrance to Big School. They had the most comfortable beds that I've ever slept on, you could just sink into it, but without drowning as some super soft beds are wont to do. Anyway this was our room:

It might look a little dark but it was amazing - and so cool compared to the incredible heat outside. 

Anyway, the Carolina Inn is actually part of the university itself, having been donated by John Sprunt-Hill, an ancestor of one of my friends here, in 1935. It was design to cater to the 'special wants' of both university students and relatives when in Chapel Hill, but it has a great history from WWII. They were the official kitchen for troops during the war and had a huge cafeteria, now a grand hall, and photos line the walls of soldiers and veterans. I think it's kind of nice how much support they show for the Armed Forces here. Just down the road is the ROTC building too, which is also gorgeous and has this amazing front with three doors for the army, naval marines and air force. In the UK, I swear it would just be a grey, granite building with function rather than anything like this.

So moving on, I've moved in!! Ah!! It's really exciting!! I'm currently actually sitting on my bed, propped up on the colourful excess of pillows, sipping from my nalgene and relishing the air-conditioning. It's a 'cool 88F' here today, with a humidity of  51% right now so it feels even hotter. They're calling the weather 'autumnal' and all of us exchange kids are sitting here going 'my bloody god it's boiling' and their faces slipping off in the sun. 

As you can see it's blue blue sky!! 

And here is the historic Bell Tower, which is pretty much the land mark I use figure out where I am all the time.The Bell Tower rings like every fifteen minutes or something - so you can never get completely lost as long as you follow the sound.

It's quite amusing because we're down in South Campus by the huge Basketball Stadium and beyond the even bigger Kenan Stadium. It's a little ways from the main buildings and lectures but the walk will be good for us considering how HUGE the portions are!!! Every meal is like twice the size of tasteful - not that I'm really complaining because it's really good food and you can take away leftovers in boxes that are offered no matter where you are. 

I've been trying the local 'cuisine' - I feel like I should be calling it something special though like... grub... or something specific to the south. So far I've had Shrimp and Grits, Catfish and Biscuits. Grits is like a corn mix that some describe as 'hot cereal' but I think it's more like savoury semolina. And Biscuits aren't biscuits - they're scones, but also savoury. All the food is either really salty or really sweet it seems though and almost everything comes with either butter or cheese. We went to walmart for the first time (rather exciting) and all we could find was this weird butter that was 'sweetened and creamed butter: salted'. Weird? I've also been getting rather well acquainted with the Franklin St foodies. We've been to the Carolina Coffee Shop, BSkis, Spanky's, the Mediterranean Deli, Four-Eleven-West and Top-of-the-Hill. Eating out though is going to soon become expensive. I might have to invest in a meal plan so that I'm never in the position where I just don't have enough to really eat, especially since their bank accounts are a little bit confusing still at the moment. 

Ramble on food done. Once mum figures out her computer I'll also have a whole load more photos to put up of the room before the big move in but right now I've only got 'after' photos. 

My roomie is called Andrea. 

She's a lovely girl who has such a complicated background in terms of where she's from that I find it hard to follow. Suffice to say that she was born in Germany, lived in California, then Costa Rica, then Guatamala, the the UK and now here! But she's half Argentinian and half German (but her father was actually born in Russia). So you see what I mean??? We're in 407 and our room is AWESOME. It's very chilled out and we have music playing constantly and neither of us seem to be antagonised by any of the other's tunes. I think we're both pretty relaxed people when it comes to sharing the space and just getting on with things (although I'm sure it'll be a different story come assignment time). 

Then there's Fiona and John, both from Glasgow, who are in the building across the road from us. It's called Craige and is pretty much identical to ours which is cool. Fiona's living with an awesome girl from Fayetteville. She seemed a little excited to be rooming with someone British. John is with the mysterious 'TJ' whose real name has nothing to do with the letter J. Apparently, according to John's prolific facebook stalking, this TJ is a chilled seeming black bassist. I'm excited to meet him.

We've also met Alex, who rather bravely approached us on his own to say hello after noticing our accents at breakfast at the Carolina Coffee Shop.

Somehow between the five of us we've already formed a nice wee group that I think will mean that if we do go through the 'week six - wtf am I doing here' phase, as Amanda predicts, we'll be ok and have some good friends to drink tea with. 

On a final note that I thought was really interesting - the North Carolina number plate is the reason for the title of this entry. Here it is:

Did you know the Wright Brothers, the first people to ever put a plane into the sky and properly fly it, were from North Carolina? No?? Well that might be because both North Carolina and Ohio claim the credit for the Wright Brothers and human aviation. It's a rivalry epitomised by their competing plates. What a way to try and stake a historic claim. 


Je serai poète et toi poésie,
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