And So The 'See You Laters' Begin

So the emotional stage of saying, 'see you at Christmas' to the people closest to me and then sitting, thinking and freaking out about the fact I am going to be away from the people I rely on the most until DECEMBER has begun.

Caitlin (a good friend of mine from uni and a fellow scouter) decided to throw a bit of a 'party'/get together last Saturday. We had all our friends meet us in Baa Bar which worked out great! We could hire an area of it out FOR FREE then spread into the main section when everyone had arrived and have a dance! Perfect mix of chatting, laughing and dancing! It was a really good night and then we could move on down the road to the centre of Liverpool. We went to Mojo, Heebie Jeebies and Tribeca, basically three places you HAVE to go to on a night out in Liverpool. Mojo let's you dance on tables for goodness sake! It's great.

(instagram.com/laufrancesmccann13)

Then today I had a lunch date with another great friend at the Brookhouse (a great studenty pub in Liverpool). It, like Saturday, was so bittersweet. On the one hand I had an absolutely lovely and enjoyable time but on the other, I was heavily reminded that when I said bye to her I wouldn't be saying hello again until Christmas. It's so weird. 

Everything is becoming very real. Not that I have avoided the reality of going away at all, I'm thriving on the whole adventure of it but there, as always with big events, it's difficult to fully accept they are going to happen until they are happening. I was the same when I was faced with leaving home last September to go to Keele and most of my friends were staying at universities in Liverpool. I was so excited yet terrified at the same time. However, this time I can look back at how amazingly everything's panned out in terms of relationships with going to Keele and use that to give me confidence when going to Texas. Also, the fact the my boyfriend and friends from Keele don't leave near me, I've already had lots of practice with long distance relationship so hopefully it'll all continue to go well; I'm praying so! 

Vaccinated for Vacating...

Just a quick note about getting all my necessary immunisations.

First word of advice: check with the country you're going to what exactly you need then go straight to  a travel clinic rather than your doctors. I did it the other way round but found out that one of the major tests I needed (one for TB) could only be done at a travel clinic but after waiting for appointments etc, it took a week for me to find this out. Also, check online if you need clearing from a doctor to get certain tests, I didn't so my appointment took about 15 mins long that it should. So save yourself the hassle.

Second: do it all asap. True to form, I cut it a bit fine with mine as I got the results of my TB test today, 3 weeks before I am flying. It's great that it came back negative because if it had been positive, I would have needed another needle and they say you should have them at the latest, 2 weeks before you go so yeah, sort it out quickly.

Third: if you're afraid of needles, don't be and by all means have no shame taking someone with you. I have tattoos and piercings so it's fairly clear, I'm not bothered by needles but whilst in the waiting room I saw someone older than me take a parent with them to get a vaccination - no shame!

Final piece of advice: ask about side effects of the vaccinations you're having. One of the ones I had was a meningitis booster which left me tired and a bit feverish all day. It was fine as I had no other plans for the day but I'd have had it before a day at work I'd have been in trouble.

Last thing's to do now are sort accommodation and have a final night out to officially say 'see you later' to my closest friends! 

Got My Visa, Next Stop Texas

So today my visa arrived!! One more thing checked off the list, final thing really, it's such a relief.
Yes, the postie brought it today, a Sunday, sorry Uncle Vernon!

I thought I would therefore write a post about my experience with getting a [student] visa, bear in mind that I only needed to go through this as an ESTA only lasts 30 days and doesn't let you study.

Before you can even think about booking your ticket to London, you need to, receive a form from the university you will be studying at, apply for and pay for SEVIS and the visa itself, at which point you will be directed to booking your appointment. Once you've googled all the bits, all of the relevant sites pop up and it's a pretty simple process.

For your actual interview, be prepared for the fact you are going to be waiting around LOADS and for a loooooooooooong time. I waited about 3 and half hours between arriving and leaving.

For my appointment at 11, I arrived at the embassy at 10:15am ish, in a smart casual outfit but without any technology (because that it what I'd been strictly instructed to do) and joined a line of other smart/cas dressed people ALL WITH THEIR PHONES AND IPODS. I was so annoyed. I'd just paid a tenner in Euston Station to leave a basically empty bag, bar my phone and iPod, in the left luggage for over 3 hours. Not to mention the boredom! Though, my Watchmen book helped with that. Lesson to learn: check first, or you'll waste a tenner and not have any contact with anyone, including the friends you were planning to meet afterwards.

Luckily for me, none of this was really an issue as I finished early enough to get back to Euston (a 40 min walk away) and contact my friends then. And the boredom was dealt with due to me taking a book as well as the little (very expensive!) shop in the big room you have to wait in and that you have to watch a big screen up ahead to see your ticket number come up so you know to go to the first and then the second booth for 5 minute interviews to check your details, what visa you want and why you want it; pretty simple.

And now I have it and it's alllllllll goooooooood!!

Welcome to 'Laura Meets World'

Hey,

I've dabbled in blogs and general social media for years but I am yet to really stick with a blog. I'm always quite private about them and then kind of run out of things to regularly be bothered to talk about but now I feel I have something to talk about regularly and I'm more than happy to point people towards it:

STUDYING ABROAD!!!

I will be at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 11th August to 22nd December 2014 studying Criminology (well...their version of it) and History, the same as what I study at my UK university, Keele. I can't flipping wait!

It's been a really long journey going from picking out which universities I might like to study at, my top 3 were University of North Carolina at Wilmington (I will forever adore One Tree Hill), UTSA and University of Ottawa (where my boyfriend is going...bit annoying we won't be together but oh well) to filling out a forest worth of forms and getting my visa. But now, it's all sorted, and there's nothing left to do other than plan a leaving party, pack and then goooooooo!!

It's the biggest thing I have ever done. It will be only my second time out of Europe, first time to America, first time away from my cat Tolkien and my bed for this amount of time and that is incredibly exciting but also ridiculously terrifying. I'm going to miss everyone so much but I know it'll be worth it.

I've no idea how often I'll post, the next few weeks it will probably be fairly sporadic but then once I'm there I'm sure it'll be rather often so I can keep a record of everything here rather than overly clog up my Facebook/twitter/instagram.

So yeah, hope you enjoy reading it all as much as I'll enjoy sharing how Laura (me) met Texas and hopefully this blog will stick with me through the other travels I plan to journey upon as I meet the world.