Monty

The beginning of september was filled with cultural surprise when we went to a concert that had been arranged by students at the school of music and drama. The place we went to, Aycock auditorium, had just been rebuild and had grand opening. A lot of good pieces were played during the evening, such as Choral Fantasy, Op. 80 by Beethoven, The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa and Divertimento in D major, K. 136, “Salzburg Symphony No. 1″ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

It didn’t take long time after this event until we started to plan a trip to Atlanta. The weekend 19th to 21st of September was scheduled for Atlanta and we travelled there by rental cars and stayed at a hostel. One of the exchange students, Emil from Norway, had his 25th birthday on Saturday and we celebrated it extra much! Below you see a picture of me with the World Trade Center in the background.

We were planning of seeing the World of Coca Cola in the beginning but ended up getting lost. So after a while we found the correct directions to the World of Coca Cola but passed CNN first. So of course, we went there first, got ourselves a guided tour around the studio, how they broadcast the news, a historical overview, and much more. Below you see a picture with all exchange students that went with us from University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Time is something you don’t have much of when you are visiting a new city. So we were off pretty quickly to the World of Coca Cola and it was one of the most interesting things I have been to. It was so much fun learning about the history and especially fun when we started to sample all the different coca cola products. Below you first see me outside the Coca Cola store and a picture with the Coca Cola teddy bear.

Before entering the World of Coca Cola we managed to buy a combo ticket that gave us access to the biggest aquarium in USA, Georgia Aquarium with its nearly 8 million gallon (31 million liters) of water.

The happiness  was huge in Atlanta. Driving a car there is on the other hand a different story, but fortunately the entire trip went well. A piece of advice is to rent a minivan if you are a lot of people going. The hostel we stayed at is called Atlanta International Hostel and cost $40 for two nights. The trip, which by the way took 7 hours in each direction, landed on $50 round-trip. Amazing trip!

Something I looked forward ever since I landed in USA was to listen what Barack Obama had to say. On the 27th of September he visited Greensboro where he held a speech. About 20,000 came to downtown Greensboro and listened to him. With my luck, I managed to get to the front to get some good pictures. Sara, another exchange student from Växjö university, managed to shake hands with him! Wonder if she has washed her hands after that..

Personally I thought he was a little bit incongruous on some points, especially on the issue of Iraq. When I was at the International Congress of Psychology in berlin during July 2008 I managed to listen to Barack Obama since he was there during one of those days. In Berlin he emphasized the importance of more soldiers to Iraq and that Germany should help out on this issue, something that the German crowd did not agree on. But in Greensboro he said how important it is to take back the American soldiers from Iraq. I guess one’s speech change depending on what crowd you are addressing.

Finally, an event that doesn’t occur in many people’s life: skydiving. The first time I did this was in San Francisco during March 2008; which was the beginning of my new addiction. The 28th of September about 21 students, American and international, went to South Carolina and jumped from 14,000 feet. Below, you see the entire group with Jeremy, myself and Maiya at the front point. The second picture, from left to right: Jake, myself, Leonie and Roisin!

Before we did the actual skydiving I managed to get a short video of the environment and how people were feeling. Below you can see what happened before the jump and then my actual skydive jump.

Before skydiving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNU0kkKP5v0
Actual skydiving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w32TXPtWiuM

I have to admit that this skydive was a bit different than the one I did in San Francisco. This was at 14,000 feet (4,5 km) while the one in San Francisco was at 10,000 (3,3 km) and you could feel the difference. During October a lot of crazy stuff will happen and has happened. On the 5th of October I turned 25 years and the party was the best one so far in my life. On the 18th to the 21st of October we will travel to Washington DC. and at the end of the month it’s Halloween!

Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.

Lots of love,
Monty