“In my mind I’m goin’a Carolina”

First written in December 2013

It's been a year & a half since returning back to the UK from Chapel Hill. I had always meant to do a ‘farewell’ post, but with the mania of final year of university, getting a job and spending months catching up on previously put off blog posts I sort of lost the desire to finish it off. And then Blogger/Google decided to completely change and deny me access to the blog for quite a while!

As I left Chapel Hill it seemed as if it was a chapter of my life that was ending and being fully closed behind me. I didn’t think I would return there, or even remain in close contact with the guys and girls I had become close. Thankfully, and I guess unsurprisingly, this didn’t happen at all. Whilst it’s natural that I fell out of contact with some people, simply due to the nature of human contact and the sheer distances and time differences between people, the beauty of modern forms of communication means that in a way I haven’t at the same time. Furthermore, the phenomenon of airplane travel means I have seen certain people way more than I ever expected!

I guess this is probably a good point to put down a bit about the ‘returning home’ experience. I was told both before going out to the USA and before returning home about the reverse culture shock I was likely to experience. And it be honest, it was bad. What made it worse was whilst I missed Chapel Hill and the way of life I had lived out there, at the same time I was thrilled to be home with my family and seeing my home mates again. But I was also very conscious of having to always be so excited to be home, when at times I truthfully wasn’t. I felt bored and out of place. Added to this was also the personal need to not be the ‘year abroad guy’ who only ever chatted about the time he had spent abroad. Yet for the past year that was all I had done, and all my stories and experiences etc revolved around that. I found myself purposely giving non-committal responses to questions about my time abroad, in a way (as I saw it) to not bore people. I really did find it hard to adjust back to home life.  Also, the jet lag back was an absolute bitch. Especially as for the first few weeks of being home I had nothing to do with myself! Starting a summer job helped return a routine, but it was hard. Top tip for anyone there: when you get back force yourself back into a routine!

I was lucky going back to Manchester, as I moved into a house with other Geographers who had gone abroad as well, and so there was the common ground on which to share stories and experiences. All of the ‘study abroad-ers’ tended to stick together, some more than others, due to being placed back a year as a consequence of going abroad and as such not knowing many (if any) of the year we were joining. Furthermore, quite bizarrely, we felt a little bit of animosity from the other students; a sort of ‘who the hell are you?’ attitude. Thankfully, this seemed to fade as we assimilated into the year and got to know some of our course mates.

The housemates. We regularly looked this damn good

Back with the lads

Many of us ‘study abroad-ers’ struggled in our return to Manchester. Not only were we returning to a city where we had previously known a lot of people but now very few, but also the way our course was run had changed too. I personally found it quite jarring, especially coupled with having to adjust back to actually having to seriously study after a year of scrapping by doing the bare minimum. It was here that the support network of each other became so important, and I found it amazing how quickly I bonded with people who before going abroad I had hardly known (and in some cases not at all) to become really firm friends with many.

Manchester Study Abroad-ers really struggling with being back...

I feel I maintained a greater connection to Chapel Hill than many other returners due to my dissertation topic being based upon my time at UNC (specifically focused on the rivalry with Duke if you are interested!). This meant I still talked to many people back in Chapel Hill to get further research and information. The dissertation was also a cheeky excuse to return back to Chapel Hill for the October reading week. In the name of extra research of course….

The disso. The pint was a regular appearance throughout!

Anyways, I have been very lucky in being able to maintain contact with a fair few people from Chapel Hill since being back in the UK. Almost immediately after arriving back home I had both Jess and Abe come to stay for a few days whilst on their European travels. Even more excitingly, Pat came and visited for a few days as well, and took great delight in ensuring all the old pubs of London were thoroughly visited! Pat also visited a year later whilst working on the John Mayer tour, which meant a cheeky free ticket to the gig!

Working hard. Clearly.

Casually drinking John Mayer's beer...

 In Manchester I also managed to see Lexi & Emma again for a few days whilst they were in town (Lexi having studied in Manchester the year before I was in CH), which was great fun and despite my work load being rather hectic at the time we still managed a cheeky night out together like old times. Fiona and John still pop into my life on a semi-regular basis, which is always great fun but never as often as I would like.

With the terrible two in Manchester

With the amazing-ness of modern technology it is pretty easy to remain in contact with some of the guys who live in various parts of the world, and a few months ago a number of us who were studying in CH together managed to get around a table in a busy London restaurant and have a catch up. It honestly was like nothing had changed (after the obligatory “what you been up to?”), with the same conversations and banter flying about. It was quite funny who had ended up in London and really nice to be able to see everyone again.

Another trip around the UK found Lindsay &I staying in Glasgow with John, including a visit to Linlithgow to see Fiona and Wevine (who had casually popped over the pond for a short time!). Linlithgow is a tiny little town between Glasgow & Edinburgh, with a massive lake, castle & strong accents – just what one would want from a small Scottish place! This was a fantastic few days, especially partying in Edinburgh with everyone. Although Fiona got boy-eyes and I got beer-eyed…

Linlithgow

Yeah, I was beer-eyed for sure

Whilst I know it is unlikely that I will keep in close contact with everyone I met during my time in CH, I would like to think that I will stay in contact with everyone from CH. More likely I guess is remaining in contact with a few people regularly that I was close with from time to time. Which is fine: as long as everyone else still offers me a place to stay when I next go gallivanting around the world!

Still repping UNC in Manchester with UNC study abroad-ers

[Flying] home for Christmaaaaas (da da daaa)...

January 2012

I’m currently sitting writing this in JFK Airport, back on US soil after three weeks at home. Those three weeks have flown by, with a busy time had seeing various family and friends. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see everyone I wanted to, or some as much as I would have liked. It was nice to be back with the familiar; everyone knows how to respond to the greeting “alright?”, the Queens head adorns the currency (of which I know what each coin is actually worth) and Huw Edwards docile Welsh tones reads the news. Despite it being full of doom and gloom and how politicians are inherently evil (OK, exaggeration there!)

I was greeted by a screaming mother running down the exit walkway bit at Gatwick Airport, a very hungover sister and a pretty chilled out father at the godforsaken time of 7am on a Sunday morning. After a 13 hour trip. So the screaming wasn’t particularly welcome… Although it did give some fellow passengers a good chuckle (I jest of course). I was incredibly happy to land on British soil and see my family again (hungover sister and all!) and it was great to be back. Until I walked outside and felt the temperature. God it was bloody freezing! It took me AGES to get over jetlag too. It’s a bitch enough with the 5 hour difference, but coupled with two nights of very little sleep (stayed up till the wee hours on the Friday before flying, and then didn’t sleep much Saturday night on the plane), meant I would not get to sleep till 1am, awake at 5am, crash out again at 9am and then wake up again at 12. It was bloody annoying and incredibly hard to get the body clock back in order (even now I don’t think I’m fully there). It was fantastic to be home,  with the grey clouds and drizzly weather, back in a city with pollution and sirens at all hours of the day (OK, slight exaggeration there…), and to be back in the family home. With my own room (finally!) and comfy bed and sofa with a TV and decent food whenever I want it! Absolute bliss!

Over the course of the three weeks I was able to catch up with my home mates, many of whom I have known for over 10 years now, and some I haven’t seen in over a year. A couple of good decent trips to the pub were had, which I always enjoy doing – even if we as a group bring the average age of the place down by about 30 years! It waws great to see my mates, and I really realised how much I missed them whilst in the States. Some of them have graduated now and have joined the adult world of working (ugh!) and two of them are getting married in the summer (which I unfortunately won’t be back from). Scary stuff at how quickly we’re all growing up now compared to leaving school together just under 4 years ago. Time flys!

Pretending to be adulting

Christmas day was spent in Birmingham (UK, not Alabama that is…) with my cousins, which we have done for the last few years and I love doing. Christmas in the UK is very similar to Thanksgiving in the US, in the sense that we have turkey and all the trimmings, where as I understand in the States (as obviously I haven’t spent Christmas there!) ham or vension is usually the meat of choice of Christmas Day. Again, im not sure of the parallels with the States, but in the UK it is traditional to have crackers, with silly paper hats, awful little gifts and even worse jokes inside of them, and the meal usually lasts for hours with everyone passing out from overeating in front of the Queens Speech. Which she does every year without fail. Nice to know she works for the Tax Payers money there! Boxing Day follows Christmas Day (logically) and im not sure of the traditional meaning of it, but in today’s commercialised society everyone goes mental and beats each other up to get hold of sale items. No comment on that…

The family also holds a traditional annual Christmas Meal where all 18-19 of us get together in Cardiff (that’s in Wales, which is another country but part of the UK for you Americans who don’t know their geography) and have good fun eating drinking and catching up with one another. Oh and share presents. Of course. This was (obviously) the first time I had seen my extended family since arriving at UNC and it was great to see them all, hear about what they’re up to and share some amusing stories about situations I managed to get myself the previous semester. Which often involved a bad impression of the Southern accent…

With the (extended) fam.

Southampton (a seaside city on the South coast for you Americans who have never heard of it!) was visited for New Years. Luke is at Uni down there and has a house, so a few of us went down there for the celebrations. Which were sensible and sober. Except there may have been an incident involving late night lets-pretend-were-5-again moments in the local park. Being sensible and sober of course… I would comment on the “traditional” NYE festivities, except I’d imagine they’d be exactly the same around the world. So there’s no point in that! I also had a fantastic day out in London with two of my closest mates from Manchester – Roseanne and Deanna. It was great to see both of them (although unfortunately Becky couldn’t be there), and we had a right blast drinking the day away in Camden. The fact that it then took me over 2 hours to get home is beside the point (at least I was then sober on getting through the front door!)

Being tourists

Looking back on the Christmas holidays it has been great to be home, and I’m glad I did to recharge and see everyone again. And whilst there were a few moments where I really didn’t want to come back to Chapel Hill (things such as sharing a room, bad food) I am looking forward now to landing in Raleigh, seeing the other exchange students from last semester, Pat and the Pritchard girls and meeting the new exchange students coming to UNC for this semester. And then getting on with this semester and the fun that will be had throughout it. Aaaaaand the increased amount of travelling that’s going to happen! Even better is looking forward to the summer, with fantastic weather lined up (so I’m told at least) and 6 weeks travelling over to the West Coast! Sitting here in JFK bored out of my mind with a body clock all over the place, that seems a damn good thing to look forward too!

I was sensible all holiday. Honest...