From the Deep South to the West Coast!

Last Saturday Ruth and I left Mississippi and headed for the West coast to spend a week with her sister and brother-in-law in Foster City, San Francisco. When we arrived on Saturday night we headed out for a meal at the ‘Stinking Rose’ called this because of the fact that the entire menu consists of garlic in some shape or form... garlic quickly became a theme for the week as it managed to make its way into a lot of our food! We took a walk around Broadway and I was struck by the diversity of this big city and the sights and sounds all around. We ended our night by driving to twin peaks where we took a look at the city skyline at night, it was a cool sight.

On Sunday we went to Central Peninsula church and heard a guest speaker, the famous tennis player, Michael Chang, give his testimony, it was really encouraging and we managed to get some signed tennis balls after church! We had lunch and then drove to Stanford university where we walked around and took pictures of the different buildings there, it has the largest campus in the whole of America and was definitely a lot bigger than Stranmillis or Ole Miss!

We headed into downtown San Francisco on Monday and spent time exploring the big city... After being together for almost 4 months Ruth and I have got to the stage where we are almost one person (!!!!) and this was evident in one particular shop we visited... We both had to get a dress for weddings we’re going to at home this Summer and Ruth came into the changing room and told me she wanted me to look at something. I was already in the changing room and had on a gorgeous dress I was really excited about showing her and was thinking of buying, we both came out of the changing rooms and there we were standing in exactly the same dress and we both ended up buying it! Study abroad with one person does weird things to you! We made a visit to Chinatown and I felt like I had somehow flown right into China it had such an authentic feel to it. On Monday night it was Jones’s birthday and so we headed out to get Chinese food at a local restaurant, I tried a lot of things I had never had before including little dragon bread!

By Tuesday it was time to get down to some serious sightseeing and so we headed back into San Francisco but this time steered clear of the shops and headed straight for the famous cable cars on Powell Street that took us the whole way to Fisherman’s wharf, Ghirardelli square and Pier 39. I loved going to each of these places... Ghirardelli square was the first stop, famous as this was the place where the Ghirardelli chocolate was made for most of its history, now it has a shop dedicated to selling chocolate and many other little boutiques and pretty arts and crafts stalls. Fisherman’s wharf was a mixture of tourist attractions, shops, street performers and other random Americans (including a man who you paid to take a photo with his two dogs who were wearing sunglasses!!!)! There was loads to see and do in the wharf and pier 39 was an even cooler experience, it even had a store completely dedicated to the left handed (Dad) and we made sure to go and see the famous sea lions who line the dock.

The highlight of my sightseeing in San Francisco was by far the visit we took to Alcatraz on Wednesday, being a history major I loved getting to see the prison after hearing and reading so much about it. The tour began with an escape tour given by one of the rangers who told us of the various escape attempts that had happened, including an inmate who made it to the rocks of San Francisco Bay but had become so deluded from the cold and the sea water that he lay down and was lifted by the coast guard who sent him back! It was a really interesting but also pretty grim visit! After visiting the island prison we headed for a closer look at the golden gate and got some pretty good pictures there, we visited the small town of Solsalito and following this the famous Lombard Street, famous for being the windiest street in the world!

Getting most of our sightseeing done we spent Thursday in a Mall in San Francisco and after that took another drive down to the pier and finished the day going to the huge cinema there to see Iron Man 2.

On Friday morning we started out on our epic road trip, the plan was to drive along the coast from San Francisco all the way to Los Angeles, an 8 hour drive, meaning we got to see a whole lot more of California in one day! The first stop we made was in Monterey Bay where we visited the famous aquarium there, it was the coolest aquarium I’ve ever been in...huge tanks with more fish than I knew existed but the jellyfish were by far my favourite, the way they had been placed and lit up made them look like a work of art! Following this we stopped by a seaside town called Carmel and then drove on along windy roads with awesome scenery, through Big Sur and past Malibu until we arrived in Los Angeles that night. Our first stop was to Hollywood Boulevard where we did the Walk of Fame, checking out all the famous names on the stars and after getting something to eat seeing the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars are held and the hands and feet of the stars outside the Chinese Theatre. First impressions of Hollywood weren’t great, a lot of very weird people around and not as glamorous as I anticipated!!!

The next day we headed to Universal Studios where we were going to spend the day... this is definitely the highlight for me of all the things we’ve done while being here in the States! The day started off well getting to see sets from some of my favourite shows including Wisteria Lane where Desperate Housewives is filmed, other shows included CSI, Parenthood, Law and Order, 24 and many more! The Studio Tour took us round lots of famous sets and showed us a lot of the behind the scenes goings on at Universal! After this we made our way around all the rides, Shrek 4d, Waterworld, The Simpsons, Terminator 2, House of Horrors (never been so scared in all my life!!!), Jurassic Park, The Mummy and others... it was an awesome day out from start to finish! Before we began our trip back to San Francisco we stopped off to see the famous Hollywood sign in the hills, we also walked along Rodeo Drive but didn’t see any celebrities and our final stop was Venice Beach and Santa Monica... It was a busy but amazing weekend!

We headed back to Central Peninsula church on Sunday and spent the rest of the afternoon, reading and chilling out.

I had an amazing time seeing California and have plenty of pictures to prove it... I am looking forward to what the East Coast has to offer now. We’re flying to Pittsburgh today, it is a 5 hour flight...still haven’t got used to the size of America!

Saying goodbye to all things Southern...and never feeling so Southern before in all my life!!

I survived 3 months in Mississippi!!

Hey y’all... this may have been the last week I hear the overuse of this phrase on a daily basis and it makes me sad... I’m bringing it home... I think Lisburn needs a little more y’alls and a little less yous!

3 months after we began our adventures at Ole Miss the time came to say goodbye and to move on to the next stage of our journey as we begin our travels home. We are told our lives are like a vapour and I feel like this is true for how fast the time on Study Abroad has gone. I feel like the older I get the more I discover that you never really know how much you love someone until you have to say goodbye. I am going to miss so many good friends that I have built relationships with over the past few months. On Monday we began what seemed like a never ending list of goodbyes and the process of dismantling our room back to it’s prison cell style! Dismantling didn’t really begin however until Thursday night when it hit us that we actually had to start packing up our lives and getting ready to fill a jumbo jet with it all!

We made the most of the sunshine and headed out to the beach beside Lake Sardis for some serious tanning on Monday followed by a trip to look at the boats along the marina. I had my first wakeboarding lesson and being a bit of a self-confessed whimp I did pretty well, almost managing to stand and persevering for half an hour before I eventually gave up because I’d swallowed so much lake water.

One thing that is really cool about being at Ole Miss this semester is that the semester we choose to be there is the semester that the Hollywood movie the ‘Blindside’ is released and shoots Ole Miss into the spotlight...going home I’m looking forward to saying with pride I was a student at Ole Miss and for people knowing where that is and relating it to such a cool movie. We watched it again on Monday night and it was nice to watch it with Southerners who know the family in the movie well.

On Tuesday afternoon we completed our last piece of work for our professors, this was in the form of a comprehensive final for Dr Chessin and was based on all the work from the year. We had to fill in tables to illustrate terminology, there were short answer questions and true/false. We also received our marks from our lessons plans and I was pleased to have achieved 100%.

On Tuesday evening we hosted a thank-you dinner at our friend’s house, making a three course meal to say thanks for all the rides (both boat and car), the coffees, the meals, the nights out and much more. The evening went well and I was pleased to say that no-one got sick from the food!

On Wednesday it was a privilege to have lunch with an older missionary lady called Bette Morgan. We had met her in our first week in Oxford where we had also met girls who became some of our closest friends while we were here. She treated us to lunch out at Oxford University Club which was one of the most posh places I had ever been! She was an inspiring woman to be around and someone whose kind heart I will never forget. After lunch we headed to our friends house and spent the rest of the day watching movies, making dinner and playing cards.

On Thursday we were back to our beloved Bottletree where we met our friend’s grandparents who had come into town for her graduation, I enjoyed sitting beside her grandfather who was a WW2 veteran, he told me of how he had been sent to Australia and island hopped all the way to the Philippines. After doing some shopping on the square we had lunch at Olivia’s Food Emporium, we chilled out and enjoyed the sun while eating our lunch. Due to the hot weather and the lack of the ocean and a pool we decided it would be a great idea to go to Walmart and buy a pool and so the rest of the afternoon was spent in a two ring aquarium themed pool working on the tan. On Thursday night the packing began...

Our last day in Oxford was very busy but really fun...Of course we started our last day with our last ever Bottletree where we ended up getting kicked out of because we were there for so long! We met some more people along the square and after some emotional goodbyes headed to our very own pool complex where we added lemon juice to our hair and lay out some more! After a kabookies lunch and some more tanning it was time to get ready for my first ever baseball game. I wasn’t really sure what to anticipate as we put our Ole Miss tattoos on our faces and got ready for the match but I knew it was going to be a fun night. One thing I learnt about baseball is that it is all about numbers!!! I loved the game and was disappointed we had to leave early. I got a great sense of pride in my college watching them play in the huge stadium and regret not seeing more sports while here at Ole Miss.

We left the match and headed to the square to pick up our free tickets and meet and greet passes for the Justin Moore concert in the Lyric...I used to say I like country...well I think I never experienced REAL country. I have never seen so many ‘rootin tootin’ cowboys with their spurs and their hats in all my life and every one of them knew every word! It was a fun way to end a three month period in the South especially as we got to meet him... I had no idea who the guy was and unlike everyone else waiting in line was calm as a cucumber and got about 5 minutes of chat out of him which probably would have been more fulfilling if he had talked a bit faster...his opening line was ‘Hello Darlin’ I think I enlisted myself as his Irish promoter!! It is safe to say that after him signing my hand I will never wash it again!!!!

A swim in the university fountain was a good way to end a great night and a great three months at Ole Miss...

We are now on our way to San Francisco to begin a three week period of travel... we were only about 30lbs total overweight :s Looking forward to seeing more of America but am sad that I may never see Oxford again.... good times and great memories!!

Last week of class...Giving Rambo a run for his money...Graduation party...Dinner on the grounds...

Our last week of class here at Ole Miss came with mixed feelings for me, sad because it means we're going to have to start saying goodbye to some really good friends but happy because it means we're beginning a new adventure really soon!

Our classes this week tended to be pretty laid back which was nice as we had two tests to study for, the first being on Tuesday night finishing off our classroom management course and the second on Friday for Dr Chessin based around the curriculum and managing the classroom effectively. I was pleased to receive marks back for my classroom management showcase where I achieved 100% for the Berenstain Bears! In our final Special Ed classes we completed presentations based on different learning strategies for people with special educational needs, we got a nice surprise discovering we were exempt from the final due to an A grade from previous results.

The class however I was most sad about saying goodbye too was our Early Education class in Willie Price, over the past few months we have built up a really strong relationship with both the children and the teachers. I have loved my time with the Bunny class and getting to know each of the children's individual personalities so well made it hard to leave on Thursday. This week the theme was 'Magnificent Moms' and so our activities ranged from planting flowers to taking pitcures. On my last day with the class Miss University brought a special treat of a Sundae Party and so we all ate ice-cream and I enjoyed spending time with my class one last time. In our final reflection paper which was to be submitted this week I talked about how value the experience had been for me and how Willie Price runs a really efficient programme for young learners.




The highlight from this week took place on Wednesday when Ruth and I had the opportunity to 'man up' as we learnt our AK 47 from our Smith and Wessen and our Browning Buckmark from our M4! A very typical Southern thing is to own a gun and we have made friends with some people who definately could give Rambo a run for his money with all of their guns! They decided it was about time us Northern Irish girls learnt a thing or two and so we spent the afternoon shooting at different targets using different guns. I really enjoyed it and felt like I had definately stepped down a level on the girly scale! It was another cultural experience to add to our ever increasing list and I look forward to impressing the few people I know who can decipher good guns about my experience in Mississippi! I will however remember for the next time not to wear a hoodie as I found the metal that came off the bullets kept getting caught in my hood and burning my neck...maybe it'll take longer than I thought to be in a Diehard movie...!

On Thursday night we leveled ourselves out by spending the night in Tupelo on another shopping adventure. It was fun to be in another part of town and discover new stores, we made the mistake however of leaving it a little late to go into the Mall and so I was left stuck in the Abercrombie changing room when the music shut off and they were starting to lock up!!

I enjoyed my last weekend here in Oxford spending Friday night with some really good friends and then on Saturday attending another good friends graduation party. It was nice to be a part of our friends day amid the tornado warnings and torential rain! Her Uncle gave a ridiculous speech which included a clip of her singing when she was four and there were plenty of embarassing photos around. On Sunday we attended College Hill Presbyterian for the final time, it was great to be back here and was especially nice as after the service they had 'Dinner on the grounds' were lunch was provided by the church. It was a blessing to be part of this and spend time eating with friends, there was so much food however that I thought I was going to burst! It will definately be detox time when I get home!

Looking forward to my final week in Oxford, seeing friends and then heading on to the next stage...it's hard to believe where the time has gone however!