CA - DC - NC - UK.

The Beach-Boys loved it, so did we, but the time came to leave California State behind and make our last long flight together. To DC!

DC

Chilly DC was no longer chilly! We stayed with my friends who I saw back in January, and met up with the ever-insane Imani. Oh how I will miss this little bubble of cheer in my life... We went around DC in the lovely sunshine instead of trudging around in the snow, saw the Jefferson Memorial and went on paddle boats.

As it was close to my birthday, my friend bought me my very first ice-cream cake. Apparently these are common birthday occurrences in the states but I had never heard of them and was pleasantly surprised with its appearance this year!!! --> Looking like a normal cake, with candles on like a regular cake, cut like any old vanilla sponge, it was an odd experience to eat a cold piece, but oh-so good.

It was nice to go back once more. Central DC just has this amazingly clean, official feel to it. As the home of the capitol and the president, I suppose it should. And I suppose it was fitting that we parted our ways as a travelling threesome in Obama's own state of residence.

NC, returning home at last.
So, I made the final trip back to the south alone, contemplating the whirlwind of a month we had just had and the incredible past half of a year....

My good friend from Alabama picked me up from the megabus station and I returned to Chapel Hill once more.

It was weird to see the campus so bare, yet there was still life on it. So many students do summer school over here that the working campus never really sleeps. Its not just tours and official looking people wandering around, its students stuck in May-mesters or first/second session summer semesters... The school system is just so flexible here that if you want to improve your grade, do classes so you can study abroad, retake a failed class or just simply boost your credits so you have less to take next year, its all possible during the summer months.

Last sights of the campus

I had various errands to do, saw a couple of friends, and then went to stay with another friend Melissa for my very LAST night in the states. Staying with her family was lovely, her parents area lot like mine and being in a family-home environment again made me really excited to be seeing my own parents...

Melissa's brother quizzed me on what TV I watched, (apparently he asked Melissa what she was going to do with me... you know, as Brits are so weird and hard to entertain..!! haha), and he was impressed that I love top gear and said I live near Richard Hammond! win there.We took a trip to the beautiful Duke gardens (sorry UNC), in the most humid weather I have EVER experienced in my life. The heat got up in my last month or so in the hill but blimey this was just something else. It wasn't noticeable in the house as it is so well air-conditioned but I was dripping before we'd even got to the car. Wonderful. The week after I left was set to be around 100 degrees... I don't know HOW people live in that, Melissa said she just stays inside. Wise I should think.

So a couple of lovely, chilled few days before coming home. I had my last bski's (AMAZING wrap store on Franklin that I don't think I've ever mentioned, but its awesome), my last visit to Sugarland with my friend Ryan, my last american movie night, and last walk around the campus... for now.

Then it was all homeward bound from there....