It's now been my 11th day in the states and I am having the time of my life!
First I spent 4 days in Hawaii, where the weather was pure craziness. When I got there at 6:30am it was extra warm and humid, really gross overall. I was feeling fairly overwhelmed emotionally and physically. Just everything felt so weird coming straight from Adelaide where it had not even been one day since my Poppa had passed away, direct to Honolulu where I was all by myself and very tired. I spent the whole day wondering around in Ala Moana Centre whilst waiting for check-in time at my resort where I had left my luggage with the bell-boy. It had not even been three hours when I crashed extremely early for the night which inconviently lead me to awake at 4:30 in the AM.
Pretty much the whole of Saturday was soaked through with rain, so I decided to catch a bus to the Waikele Premium Outlets about an hour out of Honolulu. There wasn't a whole lot of fascinating stores there but I managed to buy two tshirts and a fresh water pearl earrings and necklace for a reasonable price. I spent another quiet night by myself that evening before crashing a bit later and getting up bright and early on a beautiful Sunday morn'.
I visited one of the New Hope Baptist Churches for the morning service. Spent a lovely afternoon talking to some friendly locals at the church lunch before a couple offered me a lift back to my resort. Meanwhile the whole weekend I had not gone swimming at some of the most beautiful beaches on earth (the jellyfish signs scared me), so I walked along the beach in the arvo and ended of the evening with a wonderous sunset as an encore.
The Monday was mostly spent packing and cleaning up, before then catching a shuttle bus to the airport and getting myself on my plane heading to Atlanta in Georgia on the mainland. The airflight had a little less turbulence than my flight from Sydney to Honolulu but it was still enough to keep me up all night. After getting off the plane bright and early in the AM in Atlanta I decided that I really and truly dislike flying on planes.
My first day in Atlanta consisted of mostly feeling of being a zombie and laughing hysterically at my friend Jeremy's jokes in the food court at Mall of Georgia and consuming Chik-fil-A. I crashed for three hours in the arvo, got up to have some dinner and then crashed for another 12 hours. It's evident that I was INSANELY exhausted and tired.
The next day Heather, Jeremy's girlfriend, came (she was staying the week too) and so we spent the day at CNN HQ food court (where I got to experience Taco Bell!) and the Georgia Aquarium. The Aquarium is just massive, I've never seen anything like it, the actual aquarium inside is the size of an American football field and there's hundreds of kinds of fish and all sea-life. From as little as a Seahorse to as big as a Whale Shark. I had an absolute ball.
The Thursday me, Heather and Jeremy's family went to his aunt and uncle's house north of Atlanta for Thanksgiving lunch. It was hmm.... interesting to say the least! Interesting in a good way. There I tried all kinds of traditional foods like Sweet Potato Casserole (which is now my favourite at the moment) and watched Jeremy's brother and dad play with rockets. Then in the evening me, Heather and Jeremy drover to Lake Lanier where they had the 'Magical Nights of Lights'. Basically thousands of Christmas light and decorations, it was uber pretty. Went to the little park fair at the end, rode on the ferris wheel and another fun ride and consumed some cooked marshmallows.
'Black Friday' was then there right at us like a hurricane. Black Friday is basically the day after Thanksgiving where all the stores and shops have huge sales and it's just utter madness, although we were lucky that it wasn't entirely busy because some people are starting to cut down over here. We drove and shopped a bit before getting my stuff and having a very entertaining and eventful drive to Columbus. We were supposed to meet my friend Josh who was picking me up in Lumpkin but there is NOTHING in Lumpkin. Like, you could blink and then literally you'll be passing the sign that says 'You are now leaving Lumpkin'. And Josh kinda got there super early, waaay before we even started driving there. So they decided on meeting in Columbus after hiking a bit in Lumpkin. Then we had to find where to meet in Columbus since it's quite a big place with sooo many fast food chain resturants. Josh and his friend decided on Sonic, but then there was our task of trying to find which Sonic since there was at least 10 in and around Columbus. So, fortunately for us Jeremy had a GPS. We turned down a random road to fill up on petrol and then discovered that it was the road that the Sonic Josh and his friend were at. We found them, had some dinner at Sonic (which has the weirdest park-and-order thingys) and I was off with Josh and his friend. I was very worried that we might get lost, seeing as it was night time, SO foggy and we turned down at least 3 or 4 wrong roads along the way. BUT we made it to Panama City (in Florida). YAY!
The weekend was spent mostly being lazy, eating traditional southern-style foods (which there are still leftovers of) and going to Josh's church.
Yesterday me and Josh enjoyed most of the day at Coconut Creek which has 2 putt putt courses with huge plastica animals and all sorts of interesting things and also a huge maze. He bet me at all of it. Which is the way it goes I suppose? :P Then we hung out at Panera Bread (which is a FANTASTIC little place, I wish we had them in Australia) and shopped a little bit. I bought a really nice woolen sweater from Aerostopale for around 20US$.
Today I've helped his older sister teach her 5th grade class. I talked to the class about Australia and they asked me hundreds of questions, including a few silly ones like "are there computers in Australia?" HAHA. Then me and Josh are supposed to be going back to Coconut Creek and then heading to Bonefish for dinner because it's Josh's birthday today. :)
Anyway that's about as much up-to-date I can think of and I hope to post again at the end of this week!
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