So, 50 days and 3,000 miles later, here I find myself in a lecture room in Kingston, with all the characteristics of an everyday lecture back in Charlotte… other than the accents being different… oh and they spell colour correctly!! But, what else is really different from my American counterpart? Well… here it is… hopefully relevant for you folks on both sides of the pond… a little insight and run down on Charlotte vs. Kingston!…

Now, granted the University of North Carolina (UNCC), had many, many buildings, sports fields, residence halls - parking! everything, whereas Kingston Uni Penrhyn Road, in a nut shell is 2 buildings with 1 giant portacabin plonked next to it… here you can decide which one looks more inviting!…

The main entrance to Kingston University’s Penryn Road Campus with sign!;

UNCC’s entrance sign - and with thier big campus it can stand proud on its own!;

Kingston Uni’s main teaching building;

One of many teaching buiildings at UNCC; (much newer and nicer!)

Kingston Uni’s main… corridoor;

UNCC’s main… er… path?…;

 And finally, to get some scope on the size differences of these two campuses… here is a satelitte image of Kingston University, Penrhyn Road (in red);

Compared to the University of North Carolina, Charlotte’s campus below at the same scale;

Well, what can I say? 2006 has been a hell of a year, full of events and occasions which I’ll hopefully remember for a long time… So, this time last year I was writing a blog looking back at 2005, and after summarising what to me were the most life changing events month by month, I came to the conclusion that at the end of 2005, like the end of 2004, I had no idea where I would be the year after, from where I would be living, to doing, to pretty much anything, so, has this year been any different?

Well, the year started off where the previous one had ended… travelling back up to Kingston in January to take exams from my first semester, and generally getting back into life back at university after being home over Christmas. And that was it, getting back into things at Kingston and that was life, generally continuing work for the next few months with the highlights of having my uni halls flat attempted to be broken into, and my car hub caps stolen…

Then, in spring came the announcement for students to be able to study abroad for the second year of their university course. Well, after some consideration I decided to take the plunge I was so long looking forward to. Charlotte in North Carolina was the choice I chose out of a list of possible American universities. Why Charlotte? Well, it’s something a few people have asked, and keep asking me even now, after all, it was the university out of the list which caught my attention more than the others, other than it just being good for Computer Science, I seemed to be drawn to it, something which I hoped I would take action with once I got there… I hoped…

So, after a few induction lectures at Kingston, a couple speeches from students who had already been to Charlotte who had loved it, it was time to sort out Visas, flights, accommodation, everything… it was going to be hectic, we all knew that, it wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t really. So, that was the summer, dealing with the upcoming study abroad exchange, and settling down and having a long needed rest from the work and stress, as well as leaving my university halls at Clayhill for one last time.

But, in a flash summer was over for us at least, American universities begin their 1st semesters at the end of August (as opposed to the end of September in the UK), and so the summer was cut a bit short! So, after packing up my life into two suitcases it was off onto a jet plane around to the other side of the world to experience a new way of life.

America - Sun, heat and humidity! So, for the final four months of 2006 I spent my life in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a great time, a truly fantastic experience which I would recommend to anybody thinking of doing the same thing. For four months I made new friends, went to a whole host of attractions, saw Washington DC and New York, America! Everything about it was amazing, (well - apart from a couple of lessons!), but nevertheless, something I wish I could do all over again, but I did it, I’ve got the memories, the photos, the souvenirs; that’s what it was all for - right? An amazing part of my life wrapped up and tucked away for a rainy day for me to look back and remember at?

If you’re still wondering the other reasons why I lobbied for Charlotte to be the first choice of university, and if I ‘took action’ as I had hoped… well… I didn’t. The short version of the back story is, I was good friends with someone who lived not too far from Charlotte, in Winston-Salem NC, who sadly passed away with a heart condition in 2003. Anyways, I kept in contact with his parents for a short while after, but, you know how it is, people drift apart. But, this was my chance, probably, my only chance, to go meet them, all it would have taken was a phone call - or an email… but, it didn’t happen, and I’ve only got myself to blame… the weird this is though, after 2 years of not hearing from them, on my arrival back to England, I was handed a Christmas card and letter from them from my mum which they had posted to me to Torquay back in November. Weird hey?

So, here I am, back in Torquay, its 3.30am on New Year’s Eve morning, and I’ve been back for nearly two weeks… good to be back? In some ways… In nearly 20 hours it will be a whole new day, a whole new year, or, just another day, depending on how you look at it… and where am I this time now, compared to last year, and the year before that? Well, I still have no idea where I will be this time next year. In six months or so I’ll be 20, and about to start my placement year at a job somewhere, only time will tell where though, determining where I will be this time in 2007, and what the next bunch of 12 months will have in store for me…

Ask anyone who knew me two years ago; back in sixth form living to what some people would have been their dream, studying further education with some great friends and have some great times. But I had my sights set on something more. We were all at the stage of sorting out our universities and where we would all be a year from then, I wasn’t even sure what university I really wanted to go to - but there was something I was sure about. I wanted to go abroad, go to the states as an exchange student during university. I’m not really sure why, I guess a multitude of things, from experiencing a new place; something different than the same old same old, to proving to people in my life that I could achieve something - with or without them, something to show for my life I suppose.

Either way that was two years ago, since then as well as sorting out a barrage of problems with everything imaginable to get me where I am now, I chose Kingston University, got through my A-levels, dragged myself to uni, and survived it for a year and passed, got visa’s and plane tickets and jetted off to the other side of the world. The dream I had of going abroad to the states to study was becoming reality - finally I was here, in another university, in another country, scary yet exciting all at the same time.

Surviving through the heat and humidity of the first couple months now seems quite some time ago. Getting settled into classes, meeting new people and becoming use to a different way of life were all part of the experience I guess. Nothing is ever quite text book though, and the experience was cut short with what seemed to be nothing more than a blink of an eye, when the year long trip would only be until Christmas due to complications and possible problems with the course and the following placement year back in Kingston.

However, I’m here now, in my room bracing myself for an onslaught of exams to come, while being able to look back at all the places I’ve been and seen and what I’ve done over the past four months of being here, it has truly been an amazing time.

Yet, it seems as though I’m waking up from the dream I spent so long wishing for, it’s hard to think that in little over two weeks it will all be over, another part of my life consolidated into my history books. It’s weird when you know the end of something great is coming and you just can’t stop it, you want to hold on, just for one more second but the breaks just won’t work.

Bright and early, 8am once again, ready for the final day of being in the city. With an our or so until we have to check out of out rooms, we take the time to quickly look at the ABC / Disney studios a couple of blocks away from our hotel, and then have a wonder around Central Park which was right next to our hotel, before we had to head back in around 9.30am to leave our rooms and abandon our bags for the day until we collected them later that evening ready to head back….

We then headed down to the island of Manhatten to the very bottom to go visit the Statue of Liberty. With a queue to get to the island as long as the island itself it would seem, we took it upon ourselves to take a ferry tour around the harbour instead, with a queue much shorter so we could maximise our time for the day. The tour took little under an hour, going around the Hudson River, past the Statue of Liberty and along to the Brooklyn Bridge and back. It was a good trip, and with great weather I managed to get some good photos.

After getting back off the ferry and looking around Battery Park and at the building used in the Men In Black movies as thier HQ, we headed back on the Subway back up towards Fifth Avenue and Times Square again, this time though to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center to get some photos of the city in the day, to go along with the photos of the city at night form the Empire State Building.

After spending time at the top taking a load of photos we headed back to get a bite to eat and then do some shopping before we had to leave for good. Not before long though it was already getting dark, and with shopping bags in tow, we slowly made our way back to the hotel while taking some last photos of the streets and such like.

It was an amazing city, and somewhere I would love to go back to one day, next time for longer than four days though! It was just a shame we didn’t have a whole heap of time to go everywhere possible, but we managed to go to all the ‘big places’ and it was all good in the end, and after another 12 hour coach journey we were back Sunday morning to properly sleep!

With little over five hours sleep, it was the start of another day - back out of the hotel again at around 8am as to try to make the most out of our short time in the city. You couldn’t really ask for better weather - bright blue skies without a cloud in sight, pretty amazing for the end of November, and how it had been raining for the entire previous day.

The morning was spent generally taking photos of the city in general, browsing some shops up and down what would seem to be the main shopping street; Fifth Avenue which led down to Times Square past the Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.

The morning seemed to be over in a flash, and having ended up taking photos of people Ice Skating outside the Rockefeller Center, we headed inside for our pre-booked NBC Studios Tour, which we had organised back in Charlotte a week or so before the trip. Sadly photography inside the studios was prohibited, however it was a couple studios for NBC News, NBC Nightly News and the Saturday Night Live studios, all of which air in America obviously on NBC. Being an enthusiast of all things TV and Media related I enjoyed it, similar to the BBC Studios tour I went on a year or so back in London. Afterwards we went around the NBC Store located at the front of the building to buy some NBC, and, Studio 60 merchandise!

Times Square & Empire State Building  

By now it was mid afternoon, so we popped down into Times Square for food and more photo taking, this time in decent weather. The plan was then to head over to the Empire State Building to get some photos of the city, in the day, during sun set, and at night all in one go. How wrong were we. It would seem everyone else had the same idea, and after standing in a queue for three hours - yes - three hours to get to the top, it was already dark. However, we took a load of photos, even though without tripods it proved slightly challenging not to get blurred shots with it being dark - but thankfully I did get some decent photos.

  After the Empire State Building and heading back to the hotel to unload all the photos we’d taken so far that day, it was back out down into Time Square at night - we didn’t want to waste any of our time there. So, we explored Time Square at night and again got alot of photos. We headed into the ESPN Zone to get a meal and sit down for a bit, while eating our ‘ESPN Burgers’ - thats what they were called! It was a pretty cool place with a nice atmosphere. 

The City That Never Sleeps  

Its true what they say, New York really is the City that never sleeps, by midnight the streets around Times Square were as busy as they were in the day - it was pretty insane. Come 1.30am, we were still around the square having purchased some souvieners from very late night opened souviener shop! When we happened to come across a row of police bikes, with the cops just standing around chatting and such like. We noticed other people asking if they could sit on the bikes and have photos taken, and so, we did too! So, at 1.30am in the middle of Times Square, we were each sitting on a police bike in turn having a photo taken! Its was pretty cool, and something I would have never expected - I can’t even imagine something like that happening in the UK at that time of night.

Even though we could have stayed there forever, we had to make ourselves go back to the hotel so we could wake up again the next morning! So after making our way back into the Subway, we ended up waiting around for 25mins for our train to turn up. While we were waiting, a singing guy (I would say hobo, but he seemed well dressed as if he simply did it as if he was bored) was on the platform performing a variety of songs. Now, not like any other random weirdo on the streets who sings for change, he was actually pretty good, and over the time we were there was building up an audience for himself. Everyone waiting was listening to him, giving him change, even singing along and recording him - he was a legend in his own right!

As the weather man predicted, Thursday was going to be raining all day. From the early hours we were up and by 8am out the door wondering the streets again! First stop was the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade which was basically happening at the end of our street, so for a couple of hours we stayed there watching the parade go by… even with the rain loads and loads of people turned up. But after a while of getting drenched we decided to abort the parade….

The next task was to try to work out how to buy subway tickets, and then how to use the subway! First stop was Times Square. A rainy day would have been perfect for shopping, but, with it being Thanksgiving nearly everywhere was closed, so after getting something to eat we took it upon ourselves to try to find David Blaine, who was performing a stunt involving a massive giroscope with him in the air for three days… but unless he had already finished by the time we got there, we couldn’t find him, not even the cops knew where he was… This would end up being the first of many visits to Times Square, and so photos were ‘reserved’ for the following day with better weather!

With umbrellas in full use, we headed back to the subway and further down Manhatten to Ground Zero. Other than a crazy preaching woman who seemed to be shouting and protesting about everything under the sun, the area had a very somber feel. It was hard to believe that the scenes from 9/11 that we’ve all come to know happened where I was standing five years before.

By now it was already getting pretty late in the day, and with the rain still pelting it down it was time to head back. With news that the weather would brighten up for the next couple days, all eyes were on them to get everything else done.

Well, when I say ‘day one’ I really mean ‘day one and a bit’. Tuesday night. 10pm. We were all leaving Charlotte for an eagerly awaited break to New York City over Thanksgiving. With a 12 hour coach journey ahead of us to get there, all we could do is try to sleep.

 After what would seem as a life time on board the coach - which atleast was a decent new one this time, as opposed to the older one we had going up to Washington DC. Anyways, we finally arrived in New York at around 10 - 11am after stopping off at a service station near the New Jersey Turnpike for breakfast, and after the driver drove around the same blocks 3 times trying to find the hotel…

After getting given our rooms and sitting down for a little while, we were all back out again for a coach tour of the city, where we basically went around for the afternoon being shown where we can go such as the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero and such.

The next morning the Thankgiving Macy’s Parade was going to take place, so later that evening we were back out again, this time walking up a few blocks to get to where they were inflating the massive balloons for the following day’s parade. It was pretty cool, seeing them up close, which a load of people all there bustling about! See photos in the next blog post.

Like with my Washington DC blog; more photos will be added along with each blog post, day by day until the end, this trip I took over 1000 photos - so it’s gonna take me a while to sort through and upload the best photos up onto here!

Today there was a basketball game at the university, with the Charlotte 49ers (UNCC’s team) against Hofstra University, to you and me, thats a university up in Long Island, New York. It was a good game, and in true ‘me’ fashion, I took a load of pics which you can see in the gallery, as well as a video clip which is at the bottom of this blog post! In the end Charlotte won, by 8 points (I think!), even though come the end it was getting pretty close!

But, as always, there’s always crazy things happening - and this game was no exception! For starters there was a brass band - with drums - in one of the stands. Every so often they would all burst into tune, normally during time outs and at half time. You’d think a band was just a band though - but they seemed pretty energetic! Even with thier big instruments, all standing in what must have been pretty cramped seating for them, they were moving with the music, from just swaying, to turning around all the time during one song after - er - the chorus? - I’ll call it the chorus… Anyway, for a band, they were pretty amazing…

…there were also quite a few people dressed up as everything, from bears to smooties and from suns to a big nut and bolt… mainly advertising stuff, but at half time they had a crazy little basketball game of thier own - pics in the album, all i can say it was pretty crazy. There was also the Charlotte team mascot - Norm the Niner - who went around, propelling tshirts out of a cannon, or, as the pic shows below (the one on the right) using a fishing rod and a fake spider to scare people!

I also recorded the team entrance for the Charlotte team, which you can watch below. In true American style, its was all big, lights and music!

For you facebook and RSS readers, the video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73PIy1tEhcY

Friday night Myles’ uncle who lives in South Carolina took us to the Motor Speedway track here in Charlotte to watch a NASCAR race! The race started at 8pm and so was at night which in a way was pretty cool, however as we found out later may not have been the best as it got very cold with the race not ending to around midnight.

 Before the race started we had to go buy ear plugs from a vendor outside the stadium - I would find out the nessacity later when 40+ cars with beefed up engines roar past 300 times - it becomes very noisy, unbearable without any ear protection. Outside seemed a hive of activity in itself, with loads of golf cars racing each other and driving around in groups. There was also the team trailers selling official merchandise along side sponors and thier own adverts and competitions. Of course there was also TV-ness, with a live TV soundstage outside, and a TV-Media village made up of loads of satelitte trucks and trailers, serving to broadcast the race to TV, as well as being a hub for all things media related - rightly called the NASCAR Technology Center.

Sorry if some of the photos are blurred. With it being night time, and the speed of the cars it was difficult to get good photos.

Anyways, onto the race itself, which was great, we had pretty good seats, close to the track, just past the corner of turn 4, allowing us to clearly see the pit lane aswell as being abloe to see the start / finish line and the majority of the track. Along with a ton of crashes, a few of which happened just in front of us, and a couple I cought on camera, the cars were going so fast the majority of the time taking photos was a challenge! I resorted to video for the majority of the race, which you can see a short 3min video at the bottom of this blog post.

All in all it was a great night, seeing the race was great, and some of thier equipment, such as after a crash having 2 trucks with jets which sounded like an airliner landing!, which blew all the debris off of the track, as well as the crashes of course! And how a guy went from 42nd place - to 2nd!

RSS & Facebook readers click here for video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkTTw9y9nNQ

Well, the second day we woke up at 8am for an early 9am start to make sure we didn’t miss out on anything! To start with, we headed across the street to the Old Post Office, now used as a food court where once again we got security scanned…. Once in though, we headed to the far side to get to an elevator to get us up into the bell tower so we could overlook the city in all its glory and get some shots looking out over the cityscape.

After that we started wondering around much of the same areas as the day before. The weather was much better today, bright blue skies and by mid afternoon turned to be pretty hot indeed, well into the high 20’s, especially with walking around non-stop all day. Aswell as re-visiting the Washington Monument, White House and WW2 Monument, we also saw the Jefferson Memorial, which was very grand and impressive. Following on from that and after seeing several US Government Helicopters flying very low past, we decided to wonder across the state line in Virginia to have a peak at the Pentagon. However, while ripping my jacket on a barrier we ended up turning back after we read signs which prohibited photography… and… with how the US is with security, especially with it being the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, we thought we would be better off if we headed back!

By this time it was getting pretty late in the afternoon, so, along with getting something to eat and heading for another look at the White House to see George, and more importantly to get some better photos than the previous day, we then headed back to the hotel to sort through the photos again. By this time I was fast approaching the 600 barrier of photos for both days so far. That even we headed across the street outside our hotel to the ESPN Zone. Now, as I’m obsessed it would seem by all this media related, this was my media fix for the trip. Along with a shop where I got a couple goodies, it was mainly a sports bar with 700+ screens! and arcades on the bottom floor, all by ESPN, Disney’s Sports Channel.

Anyway, after that we had a quick wonder around to see if we could get a few pics of DC at night, which we didn’t really, and then headed back to the hotel room yet again, for yet another early wake up call Monday morning at, well, this time it was about 8.30am but we got out around 9 or so, so all was good. Monday was never going to a be a full day as we had to be back to the hotel around 5pm to get the coach back, and anyway, it was mainly a day to get souveniers and such like. It would seem DC relies alot on mobile vans to sell souvieners by the roadside, so our plan was to wonder around them and buy some stuff… until something happened!

You see, the North Koreans decided that on that same day they were going to go crazy and test out one of thier nukes… making George Bush a very busy man and having to cancel his tea party with Tony. Either way, while wondering towards the White House (which happens to be where alot of the souviener vans are located) after taking some pics of the FBI building, we notice the road blocked off… so we waited for… well.. under a minute… until we noticed a motorcade or cars giving it all they’ve got to get to the fastest speed possible while turning out of the road where the White House is. Yes, I am talking about President Bush’s motorcade! Along with several police cars, bikes and a crazy amount of secret service (I think - Myles will correct me if I’m wrong on that) vehicles such as 4×4’s, vans and an ambulance were two limos! I got a few pics which are below to show you, a few of which have a few guys staring at me - probably thinking - if you take a pic we’ll kill you… while a guy in the back of one has a sniper-type gun…

After that excitement was over, we started getting bits and bobs to buy to take back, and sooner rather than later after wondering around them all, getting something to eat it seemed as though the time had flown by and we headed back to the hotel where we waited… sooner or later the coach arrived, we got on, we traveled… watched a movie… and a agonising 8 hours later we arrived back in Charlotte at around 1am.

So that was the trip. A few pics are below, but alot more are in the gallery, such as pics from the Mall area, Capitol Hill, the Monument, WW2 Memorial, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the White House and alot of oyther places! Check them out by clicking the piccie below.