The last few weeks have been really busy for me, filled with revision and exams (which are now finally over), short holidays, farewells, packing, visas and unpacking.

I'm now home from Uni for the holidays, I packed up and said my goodbyes to all my friends. It was weird, particularly as I probably won't see some of them for many years to come due to them studying abroad when I come back for my final year. I've been really lucky with the people on my corridor this year, I've lived with people whom I never previously thought I would get on with and on the whole we got on fairly well. I can only hope that I'll be as lucky next year.

Just before I left I received my certificate of eligibility for my visa and discovered that I had made a false assumption when buying my plane tickets for the second time. To me it seems logical that the certificate would put the date that I had to be in the country as the start of term, but oh no, not UCSB, instead it dates it from the start of classes, 5 days later. The result is that I have to change my plane tickets to 5 days later and am now unable to see my friend Juliana at all. Bastards.

On top of this applying for the visa has been an expensive nuisance, not only do they want to know information about me, but also about who I am staying with. Along with whether I have ever been a prostitute, a Nazi and/or had mental health problems. I'm surprised they didn't ask me whether I was a Muslim. It took me about 5 times to get all the information right and cost me $200 in visa fees, plus £1.20 a minute whilst I was making a (fairly long) phone call to get an appointment for a visa, where I will be finger printed. Studying abroad better be damn well worth it.

Farewells

Leaving is finally becoming real to me, today I said goodbye to Stu, a friend who lives on my corridor, for the next 15 months. I can't really comprehend not seeing these people that I have grown to love for anywhere near that long. The prospect of not seeing my closest friends and family and friends for over a year is scary. Reality has actually kicked in. I might actually cry when I say my big goodbyes.

I hate farewells, something always happens to delay the leaving and so you're left hanging around for ages wanting them to just go away. This was the case today, Stu had planned to leave at 2 but didn't infact leave till quarter to three, I'm a busy woman and can't hang around all day. The prospect of leaving is usually worse than actually leaving and prolonged farewells are just hideous, sitting in the car driving to the airport, it is hard to have a normal conversation that doesn't get down to "I'll miss you". Its not necessarily so bad if you're the one leaving because it is your choice to leave, but when you don't want the person to go, and yet know they have to, it is the worst. Perhaps we should only announce our depatures 5 minutes before leaving, so I should have not told my parents that I'm studying abroad, but wake them up at 5am on the 23rd of August and tell them I'm off to California for a year and the taxi is about to arrive to take me to the bus station. Of course, if you did that you would miss out on the goodbye parties...

Travel Plans

Instead of doing the sensible thing of flying straight to California I'm visiting a really good friend of mine, Juliana, in Cincinnati, OH first. This will be great fun, she'll help me acclimatise to the US (by showing me a gun shop!), I might get to see a bit of America and I can't wait. The only downside is that I have an environmental issue with flying (thanks mum and dad) and I will always avoid flying wherever possible, so instead of flying across the continent I have decided to go by Greyhound bus instead. I'm trying desperately to remind myself of the good points of this, the reasons that I am doing this - the environment, its cheaper, it will give me a sense of the scale of the country (which mum feels I seriously lack), I'll take in some amazing landscapes that I've never seen before, and Greyhounds are iconic, etc.

All was fine, I had successfully deluded myself that the two days and a half days journey would be fine and then, this evening, I made the mistake of looking at the details of my planned trip. It takes in a grand total of 8 states and goes through Las Vegas, Indianopolis, Kansas City, Denver, LA (not in that order) and many other little towns (there is actually somewhere called Junction City, imagine the English building a town around the Spaghetti Junction - oh, wait we did, it's called Birmingham) as well as mountains and desert. Somehow this hadn't really managed to scare me until I saw the total mileage of my journey: 2504 MILES I don't think I have ever travelled that far in my life, and that doesn't even count crossing the Atlantic. Suddenly I have a fairly accurate picture of just how far I will be from my family and friends and just how big the US really is, my mind can't quite comprehend this. I must be mad absolutely mad.

And yet whilst I am pretty scared I am also exhilerated, the idea of going on an adventure, being independent, seeing all these new landscapes, meeting new people, seeing new places. It's just thrilling. Sure, by the time I get to Santa Barbara I will be officially knackered, and yet have to find my way to my new home, introduce myself to my new housemates and move in, but its all part of the adventure, and I really feel in need of an adventure.