A fortnight in the south

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Our time in the USA has come to an end. We´ve just spent the last two weeks having an interesting cultural experience in the southern states of America. Who would´ve thought the south and north were so different! For a starters it was so, so hot. Plus they talk and eat differently.

We spent most of our time just out of Memphis attending a ´Pre-Field Orientation´conference as a prerequisite for our time in Bolivia. We got prepped up on cultural shock, cultural differences etc - all very helpful for the year ahead. We experienced a slight cultural shock of our own by attending a conference with so many Americans! Nah, it wasn´t too bad. We stayed with a ´host family´ who were very lovely and showed us what southern hospitality is all about.

During our free time we hit Memphis and saw some live blues (so, so good) and also visited the Civil Rights Museum and saw where Martin Luther King was assassinated. We had our first experience of Independence Day and went to a baseball game and managed to sing the American national anthem twice!

After conference we greyhounded it across to Nashville and spent two nights with our buddies Laura and John. It was great to see what they were up to and where they lived and to see Laura so big and pregnant! We had a very enjoyable and inspirational time with them.

Our last two days in the USA were spent driving 1000 miles (15 hours of driving) down to Florida with a few detours to historical points of interest, mainly at Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama. We were very excited to finally see the ocean again in Florida, but James experienced signifcant feelings of sadness that he couldn´t surf. oh well!

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