The Carolina Police

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North Carolina, not being as high of a touristy scale (globally, anyway) as the places we have previously visited has so far not warranted a blog, I thought. Most of the time we have spent here has been shopping and exploring a few of the local towns.

As soon as we arrived in Charlotte airport we were greeted with a couple of Lauren's mates, who managed (and it took much convincing I assure you) to get us to go see a couple of bands. So we went to some bars and saw Do it to Julia a local university band, and Carbon Leaf
Both were quite good.
Anyway I'm missing the main points of my blog.

Firstly, as far as ID checks go, this is quite the opposite of New Orleans. Every bar you go into will check your ID and then, after making an Australia joke (I think I've had quite a few about having a kangaroo tail or some shit) they make sure I know I'm not old enough to drink (I am six months shy of 21).
Also we have hired a car and I can't drive because I am too young to be covered by their insurance. So it feels very much like I am seventeen again and trying to sneak into the Macca behind Kirby.

So, (and I know this blog isn't very well thought out and I apologise) we hired the car and within hours were on route to Boone and inducted into the American traffic system with a speeding ticket! Lauren, being quite nervous about driving on the "wrong" side of the road was following a friend and we did not realise we were all speeding until it was too late. We later found out that at the end of the year the American cops are a lot tougher on tickets as they have an annual quota they have to meet.
At least we got to Boone safely.

Boone is a University town in the mountains and is home to Loz's friend Jif, who we were staying with. The idea was to head up there and do some snowboarding and shopping, however the weather was so wet that all the snow turned to ice and destroyed our plans and gave us nothing to do, aside from paying out all the American accents (which mostly backfires as I am outnumbered) We ended up leaving and going to her parents place in Denver after a couple of days. Hopefully we will be able to go back up and have a crack at some snowboarding if the weather improves.
Since we have gotten back to America actually, the weather has been terrible. The only day we have seen sun was that second day in New Orleans. Since we arrived in NC it has been nothing but rain and fog (which makes driving super fun). And it's not even real rain, it's like this constant spitting. And no snow :-(
so hopefully the weather will do something fun soon.
Today we travelled from Denver to Raleigh (which is the city we hired the car from) to see another friend, Doodle.

Oh, also I was offered a university place yesterday! BA Creative Industries at QUT. It was my 2nd choice and I haven't decided if I'm gonna take it, but at least I'm not going to end up uneducated, begging for money and living in a cardboard box in Queen st Mall.

PS: a couple of things I have forgotten to mention:

1. It's not as cold here as we expected- with the exception of New Orleans where it snowed. we have been getting averages of about 40F (which is about 5C) but because you are inside the majority of the time it doesn't feel that cold- The first couple of days I was getting about in a ski jacket and jeans and thanking God that I had remembered to bring it, while the locals have got on a thin jumper. But I then discovered that it's all you really need. So strange compared to melbourne last winter where I had way more clothing on and was fucking freezing to death, and it was about 13C.

2. Tipping. If you have not been to America before it's a foreign and stupid concept. If you eat at a restaurant, get room service and in some cases even use the bathroom, you are expected to tip. The acceptable miniumum is 20%!o(MISSING)f your meal or whatever, but you tip less or more depending on how good you thought the service was. I have been doing both. I don't know if I mentioned that night in New Orleans when we had fine dining? I left what I thought was a pretty decent tip that night. However it is annoying having to factor the tip into the cost of your meal.

Another annoying thing is that they don't add the cost of tax into the cost of their stuff. So in Aust your GST is added in and you don't even think about paying it, but here it's 20%!o(MISSING)n top of what you've bought. So say if you buy a meal, you pay 20%!t(MISSING)ax, then a 20%!t(MISSING)ip, it ends up not being so cheap as you thought. And on top of THAT because the exchange rate is so bad we have to pretty much double the cost of everything to get Australian dollars. Epic sad face. But what can you do??

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