05 Oct NorCal to North Carolina

One of the ample benefits of being a study abroad student is being able to travel and visit your friends who are studying in other states. I’m very fortunate to have so many friends scattered across the US who are willing to share their experience with me by letting me stay on their sofas. I hope you’re all prepared for my incessant complaining about jetlag! My bestie Maryska is currently completing a semester abroad at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington (UNCW). Obviously, I was going to go visit her first. I’m not sure if it’s my new ‘I live in the US and can go anywhere’ mentality, but I never really realized quite how far North Carolina is from California. It’s the opposite coast. Back home in England, the distances between the coasts are much smaller. What I forgot about living in the US is its oceanic size. It actually would’ve been faster for me to fly to North Carolina from the UK. Nevertheless, when your bestie is involved, it doesn’t really matter that you’re getting on four planes and completing an 18-hour round-trip. You’re going to get there at whatever cost.

I can appreciate the views from a window seat when I’m not worried about dying prematurely.

So I booked myself on the redeye from San Francisco to Charlotte, NC. It wasn’t the smoothest of flights. I was sat on the runway in SF for an hour because the plane was experiencing some “technical difficulties”, although the captain kept assuring us that we had a “good plane with two good engines”. It was hardly a confidence-booster to say the very least. When we did finally get in the air (A.K.A – the time when I was supposed to sleep), we had the most horrific turbulence I’ve ever experienced. You know it’s bad when even the airhostesses look like they fear death. I just remember being extremely pissed that I might die before I saw my bestie. No plane crash was going to kill me, I was getting to North Carolina whether Mother Nature liked it or not. However, my delay in SF meant that the time between my flights had been reduced quite significantly. I had precisely a 13-minute gap between landing in Charlotte and getting to the gate for my next flight to Wilmington. All I can say is that I am forever grateful for whoever invented the moving sidewalk things they have in airports now. So after barging my way off of my first plane, I zoomed through Charlotte airport like I was on MarioKart or something and miraculously made my next flight. I was sleep deprived and in a time zone that propelled me forward three hours; I was running on adrenaline. Maryska brought me my breakfast and a black coffee because she’s an angel who understands how grumpy I get when I haven’t slept or been fed. However, I wasn’t so tired that I couldn’t appreciate how lovely Wilmington is. What I really enjoyed about my long weekend there was how different it is to San Francisco. I’d never realized how much I’m used to being in the city and just getting on public transport to go wherever I want. I saw one bus the whole time I was in Wilmington. You need a car to get anywhere, fortunately Maryska is in a sorority and her sisters are extremely generous. The campus at UNCW is vastly different to ours here at SFSU. The architecture is all very similar and symmetrical. They have fields of open recreational space and so much school spirit that it was almost infectious. Don’t worry though, I’m a Gator at heart. I was also treated to my first Chick-Fil-A, which was glorious to my exhausted body. I love food so much. I went to actual sorority events and even got a t-shirt! (Shout-out to Alpha Delta Pi for being so accommodating!)

Me getting close with Mr and Mrs Claus in bed.

On Saturday, we met up with some friends I have in NC and we visited Southport, which is a small city right in the Southeast corner of North Carolina. It has been the setting for many Nicholas Sparks books and movies. I had watched Safe Haven in preparation for my visit and although I didn’t really enjoy the film, I liked how sleepy and quaint the place was! We went to a Christmas house there that was so unbelievably tacky even I – a true Christmas-enthusiast – was almost disgusted with the sheer amount of festivity. I tried my first ever saltwater taffy…never again. I really don’t understand the concept of salty candy.

Cape Fear.

You probably don’t know it, but chances are you’ve seen Wilmington already. It’s used as a filming location for many things, most famously, One Tree Hill (OTH). Maryska is a massive OTH fan so we took a walking tour on the Sunday, where we saw lots of different filming landmarks. She was excited about the OTH spots, but I was more excited that I saw the alley where Jason Sudeikis was beaten up in We’re The Millers and a wall that James Earl Jones had signed. I was stood where Darth Vader had once stood. I could almost feel the force flowing around me, and then I realized it was just a draft. Wilmington is such a lovely little toy town with the Cape Fear River running straight through it and some really good ice cream. I think I fell in love with it all a little bit; it’s just so different to SF! And so on Monday I boarded my flight back West with a broken heart because I was once again leaving my bestie and because I really just wanted more time to see North Carolina. But here’s to cross-country adventures and smooth return flights.   Forever unintentionally blogging about food, Lucie