The Second Time I Met My Best Friend

One of my best friends lives in America, if you know me in any way, shape or form then I would probably have talked about her. She wrote one of her University entrance essays about me and how we met. I thought it was about time I returned the favour and fortunately it is relevant to me getting to the States to do my placement. To see that journey you can go here. So Mary, this one’s for you.

I flew into the United States of America on 1st August 2018 and on 2nd August 2018 I caught a train to Washington DC. Now if you read my previous post you will see that the flight itself was a bit of an ordeal with various delays and panics. I would like to start this post off with what happened after that flight had landed. Landing at 2:30am I had to pick up my bags and take an Uber to my apartment (where I would be sleeping on the couch as I was not allowed to officially move in for 2 weeks). After arriving at the apartment at 4am I woke up at 7am because jet lag and proceeded to make sure I had everything together to catch my train. I was going to get an Uber but one of my housemates kindly offered to drive me to the station where I checked in my bags and proceeded to wait. The train was about 45 minutes late arriving at the station. I knew that the train journey to Virginia from Raleigh, North Carolina would take about 6 hours. Now a quick side note, it might seem silly me flying to Raleigh only to travel straight to Virginia but it was because my accommodation situation changed so rapidly I couldn’t move my flights and Mary offered me to stay in Virginia with her. So, a train seemed like the best option, getting into Washington DC where Mary’s dad could pick me up after he finished work. Anyway, I got on the train and the journey went by fairly quickly until the proposed last hour when we kept getting stopped. Eventually, we were right outside Washington Central Station and the train stopped for about 3 and a half to 4 hours. We were literally metres from the station and the train was stopped for about half the time we had already spent travelling. The reason for this stop, as I found out earlier, was that there had been a train derailment and they were only letting in and out one train at a time. We were about 10th in the queue, but it felt like we were 50th. Eventually after a total of about 10 hours on the train I got off and met Paul (my friend’s dad) who I was overwhelmingly happy to see and we drove back to his house so I could sleep for what I hoped would be 2 days.

Before this excursion I had been to America twice before: once when I was about 10 to go to Disney and Universal Studios and the second time was to meet Mary. Yes I went to another country to meet someone I met online. Blasphemous I know. We initially met online as part of a website that matched girls with other girls to be pen pals. I’ll link the website at the end of the post. This site is so much more than that now. So, it was by chance that we got paired with each other and also by chance that we got the opportunity to bond how we did. I was about 15 or 16 when we got paired and Mary was a year older than me. We later decided that the Lizzie Bennett Diaries were one of the key features of our matching even though we didn’t realise this until several years after. I was just gearing up to take my GCSEs and Mary was talking about AP classes and her GPA for college. When we first spoke it was over email and this slowly transitioned into Facebook messages, obviously we didn’t take the whole pen pal thing too seriously.

Eventually after about two years messaging we transitioned to Facetime. We would end up talking every day and Facetiming for hours on end. The main way that we managed to bond was through our last years in high school where Mary and I both had a time. One of the main functions of our friendship was that we could unload all our drama and know that it wouldn’t get back to the rest of the school population that we were having a problem. It was a very secure trust. It also helped that because Mary was a year older than me, she went to University a year ahead of me. So, when it was my turn a year later she coached me through the process. Mainly what to pack and what to expect when moving in with strangers. It wasn’t until this year when Mary’s sister was moving to university that I realised how different our experiences must have been. Although that didn’t stop Mary from sending me a dual column, 2 page list of stuff I needed to take. Her support meant the world to me because she was my back up for any awkward social situation, queue or excuse to leave early.

As a result, we didn’t really have a plan of what I would do when I was there. Mary and her family had work, her sister was also preparing for her first year at university so really I just slotted into what everyone else was doing. It was great, while Mary was at work I got to laze around and call O2 my UK phone service provider (more about that in my next post) and when she got home we would go out to eat or go driving or go shopping. There was a lot of shopping trips. Now this wasn’t a casual trip to buy pretty things, no this was shopping to furnish my room. We went to Ikea three times: once for research; second to actually decide on the furniture and pick up some small items and lastly to actually buy the furniture. We probably didn’t need that many trips but between us we like to faff and are a little indecisive. We also went to a bunch of home goods stores and T.J. Maxx (yes British people I spelt that right, same brand different name for some reason). Many evenings were spent visiting various stores to try and buy the minimal amount of furniture to make my room hospitable. Mary also took me to see a bunch of the big houses in the area on one of our late night drives and these places were huge. On this night we also ended going down loads of creepy dead end roads. Fun!

The two weeks were packed with activities that mostly related to food. We went to Ihop, Chick fil a, sweet frog and (my favourite) Cheesecake Factory. We even had Chick fil a breakfast on the way to North Carolina. We went to a Keith Urban concert and got upgraded from lawn seats to under the gazebo at Jiffy Lube and we also went to Mary’s family farm house where we had a BBQ.  We also went and watched the planes landing at the airport. Literally sitting in a field watching planes fly overhead, it was brilliant. Although I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Which brings me to another realisation.

I’m allergic to mosquito bites. Think about a normal mosquito bite: you got the bite as a small bump and then maybe a bit of red around it. Not me. I get a massive hard lump and a radius of an inch or more of red puffy skin. As it heals the red disappears from the inside out making me look like I have ring worm. So, of course my legs were covered in big ugly bites and they are so itchy. At the recommendation of the internet I went to a pharmacy and got anti-itch cream and antihistamines. I also massage, elevate and ice when necessary to get the proper blood flow and reduce the swelling and itchiness. One of the reasons suggested for these reactions is that because I haven’t been bitten before my body is reacting in a way that is too aggressive (sums me up really) and as a result it is hurting me more instead of helping. Apparently, this effect reduces over time but I don’t know how long I have to wait. Too long if you ask me. I got bitten again this week and I am still reacting in a similar way, although less severe but I assume that it is due to the antihistamines working and not that my immune system has learned its lesson. The thing I was told to watch out for was fevers of which I haven’t had yet. Although I do have a cold, probably as the result of meeting lots of new people. Don’t worry I haven’t caught anything from the lab.

So, to finish off, THANK YOU MARY! You are one of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. Talking to you on the phone for hours really has made me a better person and I am so excited for you to finish your last year of your undergraduate degree. You are gonna change the world. I honestly don’t know if I would have had the confidence to move to America for this placement if it wasn’t for you. I know you have my back even if you are a 4 hour drive away (less than a day away right?). Please let yourself enjoy me raving about you because you are amazing and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Also feel free to correct me on anything down in the comments.

Next time I am going to be talking about going to NC and what I had to do when I got there. That should be going up next week and then after that I think I will switch to every two weeks. Serves me right for letting all of this happen and not posting about it in a timely fashion. So to everyone who actually reads this drivel I hope you come back next week for more riveting content. x

Link to the Pen pal website Mary and I met: Geek Girl Pen Pal Club