Amberica #3: Days 1 to 5

As you may or may not know, back in March I travelled to the United States of America to visit one of my best friends. I was going to vlog the experience, but gave up a couple of days in because I felt fairly awkward walking around with the camera, and also we got up to so. much. that I didn’t want to take my eyes off of anything and get distracted by filming. Instead, I have decided to wrap up my trip in a few blog posts, because I want to let you all know what I got up to during the ten days I was over there.

My next two Amberica posts are going to be sort of in-depth wrap ups of my entire trip. Some days were action packed, other days we sat back and relaxed, because the weather was crappy.  Enjoy!

Day One: 13th March 2014 – Travel, Travel, Travel

The first day was one long day of travelling. I was up at 4AM, after just two hours of sleep. I always get like this before I go away because I get so excited that I can’t sleep. I am a child. My bus didn’t leave until 6.15, so I had two hours to worry over what I’d packed and to walk to the bus stop… which is five minutes away from my house. I got to Heathrow at about 7am, which was very, very early, but I would rather put my nerves at ease and get to the airport early than worry about everything taking too long and missing my flight. I was allowed to check my luggage in at 8, and then I soared through security in record time – about ten minutes! Then I found my gate and sat and read and phoned some people to let them know I was all checked in.

The flight itself was the smoothest flight I have ever been on. I would go back to America just to experience the flight again. Is that weird? Probably. I watched a couple of movies, and was given a yummy three course meal. I finished a couple of books, and then it was time to land! I spent the last forty minutes of the flight staring out of the window. I could already tell that America was HUGE. A lot of places were still frozen over, and we flew over a bunch of rivers and frozen fields.

Dee, Laila, and Jacob were waiting for me when I got through customs (another smooth process, which I hadn’t expected. I’ve heard horror stories about US immigration), and I felt a bit bad because they had driven all the way up from the bottom of Virginia, and had to wait around for AGES for me. By this point, it was 3.30PM, (7.30PM British time) and I was getting a bit tired. We got in Laila’s car and made the journey back down to their house. Along the way we stopped at a petrol station (where I had my first horrifying toilet experience) and at a diner where I had yummy chilli in a bowl. Jacob, bless him, was so good throughout the whole drive! My sister would have complained and moaned the whole way. We got to Dee’s house at 10PM (2AM British time), and I was fairly delirious at this point, and had to go to bed.

Day Two: 14th March 2014 – Lives Ruined. Bloodshed. Epic.

Laila went to buy a tonne of doughnuts first thing in the morning, which was a great thing to wake up to. While I demolished them, Wren – Dee and Laila’s demon cat – decided that, contrarily to how she behaved the night before, she hated me and wanted to kill me. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.

We took a brief drive through town, and I was shown all the pigs (Dee’s town is obsessed with pigs and ham. It’s weird.), and then we went for a nice walk through Windsor Castle Park. It’s a lovely place, and the scenery even in the winter was beautiful. I can’t wait to go back in the future, hopefully in a different season to see how different it looks! On the way back, I experienced my first Taco Bell and OH MY GOD. I could have eaten at least ten tacos.

And then the Veronica Mars movie happened. We didn’t get to go to the cinema to watch it, because nowhere close-by was showing it, but this meant that we got to watch with Tatum and Lauren as well! The movie is bloody epic, and I cried on camera and everything was painful. I loved it, Dee loved it, and now I really need to shut down the laptop and watch it again. A Veronica Mars marathon needs to happen soon.

After the movie, we went for a walk around the neighbourhood, and I was mobbed by American children. They legit ran around the corner and charged at me, because apparently Dee’s nephews had told them that they had a British person staying with them. “I love Sherlock Holmes!” “Oh my god, she’s talking British!” Yep. It was adorable.

Day Three: 15th March 2014 – Let’s go to the beach, let’s go get a wave

Since it was Saturday, Laila drove us all to Virginia Beach, which is actually a giant town (small city?) and not an actual beach. But we did get to go to an actual beach on a military base! The weather was gorgeous, but the water was FREEZING. I spent a lot of time looking for shells, making weird noises on the sand, and looking at the American crabs, which are totally different to English crabs.

We also dug a tunnel, which I like to think was a metaphor for me and Dee/England and America. Dee then fell into the tunnel and destroyed half of it, which totally doesn’t get to be part of my awesome metaphor.

On the way home, we stopped at the Carolina Cupcakery, and bought a bunch of cupcakes. They had so many options, and I had a difficult time choosing only one!

By the time we got back, it was time for drunken shenanigans. We had a tiny party, I got a tiny bit drunk, and we played a tiny game of Cards Against Humanity. Which I WILL be buying for myself, by the way.

Day Four: 16th March 2014 – Relaxing

Not much happened on this day, apart from a lot of TV watching. The Walking Dead finale was on, and THE CREATURE FINALLY DIED. And the episode of Once Upon a Time was kind of dull, which was disappointing because it was mine and Dee’s only chance to watch it together in person.

Day Five: 17th March 2014 – St Patrick’s Day!

This day was, obviously, St Patrick’s Day, which meant that I had to wear something green to fit in with the Americans or risk offending them. I’m not sure why Dee’s family would be offending, since they’re definitely not Irish, but still. I was told that I had to wear green. So I painted my nails and bought a cool t-shirt from Walmart.

That night, the penultimate episode of Teen Wolf aired and IT WAS EPIC. Aside from the [spoiler]Allison[/spoiler] thing. That wasn’t cool. But Dylan O’Brien continued to be flawless.

POSTS IN THE AMBERICA SERIES:

• Amberica #1: Surprising Things About the USA
• Amberica #2: Best Places That I Visited in the USA
• Amberica #3: Days 1 to 5