I’m Going to the US, So What Next?

Travelling anywhere, to me anyway, can be stressful. Don’t get me wrong I love to travel but, the thought of forgetting something; not having something you might need on your person or losing something along the way is an actual terror trip. Nevertheless, I decided to cart myself off to America for 12 months. That’s what I have to keep telling myself: ‘You chose this’. So, what did I actually do to prepare for this endeavour? Well, I started with all the obvious stuff. I booked flights and looked for an apartment; I applied for my visa but that isn’t everything.

Starting with the basics: booking flights is truly an art that I have yet to master. Getting that perfect deal with an above average airline, maybe even some free food thrown in. That wasn’t my experience at all. I left booking flights late, not because I was unprepared but because I was not provided with start dates very swiftly and by that point the window for ‘absolute bargin’ firmly closed. So I paid about £650 for a one way trip and that had 2 changes: Gatwick to Reykjavik; Reykjavik to Boston and Boston to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Even though the price for all three flights was half of all the other journeys I found, the stress of changing that many times almost doesn’t make it worth it. Almost. The first flight was fine. Gatwick airport was as busy as ever and Reykjavik was beautiful when I stepped off the plane, but the airport was not equipped for the number of flights and the number of people that were passing through the international terminal. I sat on the floor outside the gate for at least an hour, on top of which the flight was delayed by more than 30 mins. This caused a bit of a panic for me and the friend I made as we were connecting in Boston and I know from previous experience that Border Control can take an age. So after an antsy flight I arrived ready to run, only for the flight stats app to tell us that the connecting flight was delayed by two hours. I have to admit at that point I was relieved but only for as long as it took to get through border control, which was an hour at most. When I got to the gate my flight, which was meant to leave at 9pm, was actually leaving at 12:30am. The reason for this was a storm in Charlotte, NC delaying the plane that we needed to use to get to Raleigh, NC. So all in all the delay ended up being about 4 and a half hours and by this point I had been awake for about 24 hours. (And because I am writing this retrospectively I caught a train the next day to Virginia which ended up being a 10 hour journey instead of a 6 hour journey, so at this point I was only hour 24 out of 48 hours travelling) So, obviously for this kind of placement flights are a must.

Another must is your visa, whether that is J-1 or F-1 or any other that might be suggested to you. If you want to know more about my experience with applying for a J-1 visa then check out my previous post linked here for all that wonderfully stimulating information.

Another aspect that needs to be organised before you actually leave is where you are going to live. This is important as you need somewhere to arrive to if you don’t know anyone in the place you are going. My accommodation journey was a bit of a rollercoaster. First of all, I thought I had it organised around February-March time until the company and the girl I was going to be subleasing from started ghosting me. After more than 2 months of correspondence the girl and Vie at Raleigh (a company I am not worried about naming and shaming) just stopped replying. Now you need to remember the company for later on in this story. I found some accommodation in a housing complex close to Centennial campus of NCSU and all was well. When I suggested I might need to move in before the ‘official start date’ of 12th August there was some non-committal responses. When I said I wanted to move in on 1st August, the day my flight got in, the response was no. They were cleaning and painting my room. The walls that were once white are still white and the shower curtain railing is still rusty. Although this turned out to be a blessing, allowing me to stay with Mary (My Penpal) in Virginia for 2 weeks, it also meant that at the time I thought I had to find somewhere to live or stay in a hotel. After getting in contact with the international office they suggested a number of helpful solutions and they also offered to reach out to some places to see if they could offer me temporary accommodation, which was super helpful. It’s funny now but all those weeks ago it really wasn’t. Vie at Raleigh ended up being the only complex to respond to the International office, I gave them another chance, they ghosted me again. It wasn’t as if I was unresponsive, they always ended up ignoring my emails and follow up. Mary even called them and they still didn’t respond, what a joke. So, finding an apartment is useful. I used Facebook and Google and browsed Craigslist a little and it ended up working out. I have a nice apartment with 3 other girls; near a bus stop and walking distance from a library and a Dollar Tree. My two essentials. Try and talk to people about the area before you go out, get to know the areas where students live because in NC there are student housing areas and military housing areas. Google maps is definitely your friend and see if your supervisor can give you any information. Mine didn’t but every supervisor is different. I also had to furnish my apartment which I would not recommend but it is still manageable. I mean I chose to just have a mattress on the floor, you don’t have to. Most places will be furnished and a lot of times you will only have to worry about furnishing your own room. Although if your flatmates say you don’t need dishes it’s always worth buying a couple of things because surprisingly 3 dishes for a house of 4 is not enough.

Another thing that I found important was the packing and storage. I was exceptionally anxious about getting all my stuff in my suitcases and under the weight limit. As it turns out I worried for nothing as my small carry-on bag got checked for free. I like to think it was because my mum and I both looked like we were going to have a mental breakdown right there at the desk just from the experience as a whole. From what I experienced the weight limits are 23kg for a checked bag and 10 kg for a carry on suitcase and a backpack, which needs to be able to fit under the seat. That is all. 12 months in another country and that is all I can bring. I mean that’s probably an exaggeration as my grandparents are shipping a box of winter stuff (Thank you again for doing that <3) to me now that I have moved in and am able to receive packages. So, try and pack light, also, if you have the money consider buying clothes when you get there to avoid over packing. It can be difficult to predict the weather but for South USA you can assume it’ll be hot for a large chunk of the time and then you might also get snow. Ask your supervisor and look online for people’s suggestions, locals will generally have a good idea of what’s going on.

Finally, communication is a massive thing especially if you are going to be away for the full time you are on placement, which is my general plan at the moment. Make sure to see everybody you want to see and get contact information for Skype and Facebook Messenger as appropriate because you definitely don’t want to be making international calls to all your family members. I use Skype to talk to some of my friends and my grandparents (I speak to my Grandparents every Sunday, you know I’m stressed when I miss calling them); my Dad and other Grandparents I use Facetime and for my Mum and some of my friends I use Facebook Messenger; my sister prefers Whatsapp and my brother likes Snapchat. So, nobody made it easy for me. I try and get in contact once a week but sometimes the time difference can be tricky especially since my family finishes work when I am starting but I guess that’s what the weekends are for. Facebook means that a lot of people can stay in contact and I managed to talk to one of my best friends on Facebook only with the same time difference for 5 years so I’m sure we can all manage. Before you leave also reach out to your housemates or people living in your complex. That way you won’t be totally alone. Lastly, it is likely that you will have someone going to the same place as you for their placement so find out if there is anyone and try and get to know them too. Don’t worry too much about making friends before you go, guaranteed you’ll meet loads of new people when you arrive anyway.

So, there’s plenty to do to prepare and don’t forget if you are a full time student you have to be acing those exams too or you could get your placement revoked. Nothing too major. Overall, there are plenty of people to help you in the process of moving to your placement destination and obviously if your placement is not abroad you don’t need to worry about flights or a visa but, this is just a summary of what I was doing pre-placement. This and a lot of faffing and panicking.

So thanks for reading. I’m finally getting my groove with this whole blog thing so look out for more regular posts in the future. The next post will be about my 2 weeks with my Penpal and what we got up to and after that I will be doing a second part to this post explaining what I needed to do when I arrived in Raleigh. So, until next time.