Day 1 – Arrival into the US of A!

I have just woken up after the LONGEST day of my life yesterday! Since I last posted, I finished my jobs, had my leaving party and said goodbye to all of my wonderful friends and family and set out to Florida. Thank you to all of my amazing family and friends for making my last weeks in the UK awesome!

I spent my last day with my parents and Richard down south so that we were closer to Gatwick airport in the morning. We had a really nice chilled out time and had an amazing curry (yummmmm), made a crumble and played cards!

In the morning we were up at 7.30am and on our way to Gatwick at about 9am and arrived at Gatwick airport at about 10.30am. I checked in online the night before so headed to the bag drop. My bag was too heavy – obviously – but i crammed a few more things into my guitar case and we were away. After we had done that it was time to say bye to my lovely parents which was really hard 😦 I am a real home bird and I will miss them, my brother, my little pooch and all of the rest of my friends and family so much!

Rich and I then headed through to departures (as he was flying to france that day). I met up with Joe who I was flying with and then time flew by so it was time for more goodbyes as I had to leave Richard which was really sad.

After avoiding sitting near a crazy chav family, we were away. The flight was about 8 1/2 hours which was quicker than scheduled and was okay. It was really broken up by all the drinks and snacks they give you and we squeezed in 3 movies so the time went quite quickly.

When we landed it was about a half an hour wait to get through immigration. My guy let me straight through and I headed to the baggage claim to wait for Joe. I saw him head over to his counter. 20 minutes later he still wasn’t through! I was really worried. I was literally the only person in the big baggage claim room and a lady came over and asked if I was okay and I explained I was waiting for Joe. She laughed and said that he was probably in secondary and I would be here for ages. She was about to go check where he was when I saw him walking over and she said that I was lucky because they usually hold people for 3 hours! I think the man Joe went to didn’t know how to process our visa was all.

Slight hiccup aside, we headed for the mears shuttle desk, bought our tickets and got on the little mears taxi which dropped us at Vista Way check in. We were BEYOND tired by this point and slightly delirious. We had to watch a video and collect our paperwork then get on a bus to the commons, where we both were. Joe is in Building 9 (in Beverley Hills!) with the other UK boys on our arrival group in the apartment above him. I am with Nischka and Rachel – 2 of the UK girls – in the SLUMS! haha. Apparently they are nicknamed that because Building 9 is near the front of the complex where the bus and pool and everything is and we are at the back about 5 minutes walk from everything! But our apartment is lovely. We headed over to Walmart to get bedding and everything with our UK arrival group. Dan and Sara who are already here helped us out so much! I am so grateful for all their help – particularly dan who was amazing and helped my apartment out by sorting everything and helping us with taxis and setting up our internet! amazing!

We had a McDonalds in Walmart then headed back to the commons with all of our bags. I was SO tired by the time we got back – we stayed up and chatted a while then I passed out. Honestly, yesterday was one of the longest days of my life and it was stressful, emotional and knackering all at the same time. There were moments where we didn’t know if we were doing the right thing and then other moments where we were so delirious that we didn’t know what was happening and it all still feels like a dream. My housemates (apart from one) are all up now so I am going to head off and get ready for orientation.

Hopefully update you all soon! x