Becca In America Part 2: Settling In, Going Out & Rent Worries!

I’ve been living in the USA for just over two weeks now and I’ve been to all my lessons or ‘classes’ as they say here and so far I’m enjoying my course or ‘major’.  My uni ‘college’ is so big, I’m still trying to find my way around it and I’m still getting use to the different phrases between the two countries. Considering that we speak the same language, there are so many different terms for things! This has been a very exciting week for me, settling in and meeting so many new people is all so exciting and it just makes me appreciate this incredible opportunity even more.

And as you can see, the sun set is always amazing here! 

Although I’ve only been here for just over two weeks, I’ve already experienced some high levels of stress! If you know me personally, you know that I get stressed very easily at the smallest things (literally I’m stressed all the time and if I’m not stressed I worry that I’ve forgotten to do something important because I’m so used to being stressed that not being stressed actually stresses me out, that makes no sense but I’m hoping someone else is like this and it isn’t just me being weird!) The major worry I had this week was paying rent, as I was moving country for over half a year I thought the best way to pay for things without getting charged extortionate amounts of money for using my British bank card abroad would be to get a pre-paid travel card, right? Wrong! This card caused me SO much unnecessary stress I cannot even being to describe, turns once you put money on this travel card, you can’t transfer it to any account! So at one point, I had money on a card and still no way to pay rent. Fantastic! Luckily, long story short, I found a way and now rent is paid, so one less thing to stress over but, of course it’s me we’re talking about so it’s only a matter of time before I find something new to worry about! Moral of the story, even if someone who sells you the card tells you what you can and can’t do with it, ask someone else to see if you get the same answer! Being in another country with no way to pay rent is not fun!

Being from England it’s fair to say the weather can sometimes be unpredictable, the same went for Georgia this week! The weather here can be humid and can go from heavy rain to brilliant sunshine. I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that here it can be sunny and warm in January!

Now, for those of you who don’t know, I’m twenty. I only turned twenty in September so still have a long way to go until I’m twenty-one, which just so happens to be the age you can legally drink here in the USA. Now, back home in England I could legally drink since the age of eighteen and as a student in England, I could legally drink all the time! So as you can imagine, from being able to drink whenever I want for two whole years to not being able to drink at all is a bit of a change, especially when it comes to partying and going out! However, being underage in the US isn't really that much of a bad thing, it means I wake up hangover free and the money I would spend on alcohol I can just spend on make up instead  (Two Faced ‘Better Than Sex Mascara’ I’m coming for you).

 Luckily, a lot of clubs/bars near me have student nights we’re over eighteen’s can come in but just can’t drink. Last week was my first ever experience of going ‘out, out’ in the USA, of course I had the standard massive black ‘X’ written on my hand to show that I’m a minor (I haven't been called that in years) but despite the fact that I couldn’t drink, I still had so much fun! Another massive difference between clubs here in the USA and back at home in the UK, is that in some places you can actually smoke inside! To me, that’s so odd as we’ve had a ban on smoking in public places for years and years back home now, so to come here and see people lighting up in the club definitely different!

Here in America, college sports are huge! I went to my first ever basketball game and it was so much fun! It’s such an exciting game to watch and we won which made the game even better!

One of the perks of living in a world with so much social media is that I can always stay in touch with people from home, pretty much all the time minus the five hour time gap. So as far as homesickness, at this moment in time I’m fine because I can speak to family and friends through platforms such as Imessage and Facebook and I can even see them thanks to Skype and FaceTime so in a sense, it’s like they’re still with me because I can always reach them. 

Of course, it’s only been two weeks so there are bound to be times I miss home but so far, so good! However that being said, there are some things I’m starting to miss, which are all material items! For example, I miss having a huge selection of bags and shoes to chose from and I miss being able to watch Celebrity Big Brother at night and I recently found out that Pretty Little Liars isn’t uploaded weekly on Netflix like it is back home (US Netflix why do you do this to me?), But apart from that I love my life in the USA. It’s only been just over a fortnight, but I can’t wait to see what the rest of my time here has in store for me. 

Until next time,

Becca x