Carolina in my mind!

While living in the United States I’ve come around quite a lot – I saw pretty much all the big cities on the West Coast (I’ll write about this trip pretty soon) and have also been to some of the most popular cities on the East Coast, like Boston, NYC, Baltimore and Washington D.C.But since most of you probably know quite a lot about those cities already, I don’t want to write about them today. I’d like to tell you what to do in a “not so popular” State – North Carolina.

When I first read that my future host family lives in Raleigh, I was like ”Raleigh? Where the heck is that?”. Of course I wanted, like all the other Au Pairs, to go to a breathtaking city like NYC, LA or Chicago. But after skyping with my host family I just knew that I’d get along with the kids and my host parents very well and decided that being with a nice family was more important than living in an amazing city.

Afterwards I was and still am more than happy about my decision – I had the best host family ever and North Carolina has actually many interesting places/cities to visit. Some of them are:

Wilmington or “Little Hollywood”

One of the cutest and nicest towns I’ve ever been to – I loved it from the beginning. If you visit Wilmington you can combine it with a trip to the beach: Wrightsville Beach (my favorite), Carolina Beach and Kure Beach are all pretty close. Wilmington has a couple of tourist attractions like the battleship “USS North Carolina (BB-55)", which is open to public tours, a couple of museums and of course you can visit downtown Wilmington with its many shops, restaurants and historical buildings. Wilmington has its own University, UNC Wilmington, and the probably most interesting fact about Wilmington is that it is the home of the “EUE Screen Gems Studios”, which are the largest television and movie production facility outside of California. More than 350 productions come from the studio, like “One Tree Hill”, “Dawson’s Creek”, “Little Britain USA”, “Nights in Rodanthe” (based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks) and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”. Parts of “Iron Man 3”, which will be released this year, were also filmed there. The Wilmington tourist information offers special tours (or just maps which show you the most important places) of some of the movies/shows – a friend of mine and I followed the “One Tree Hill path” and we saw all the important places like “Tree Hill High School”, the billiard pub where Brooke and Lucas get drunk, River Court, Karen’s Café and so on.

New Bern

New Bern is the second oldest town of North Carolina and also home of “Pepsi Cola”. You can visit the drugstore where it was developed and first sold and you can enjoy an “original” Pepsi for less than a Dollar! You can also see the first Capitol of NC, “Tryon Palace”, which is really beautiful. But that’s not why we went there – we were hoping to meet Nicholas Sparks (I know, we are freaks ;)), because he lives in New Bern, and his novel “The Notebook” is set there. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but we still had a wonderful day.

 

 

Beaufort & Southport

Beaufort & Southport are also little historical towns/cities in North Carolina. As you can probably guess we went there because of some novels by Nicholas Sparks. Beaufort is small – well, to be honest, it’s tiny – but beautiful, and Southport has the biggest 4th of July parade of NC. Parts of “Dawson’s Creek”, “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, "A Walk to Remember”, “Safe Haven” and many other movies were filmed in Southport, and Oak Island, a really beautiful beach, is only 20 minutes away.

    

The Great Smoky Mountains

The border between Tennessee and North Carolina runs through this National Park, so not all its beauty “belongs” to North Carolina, but it’s definitely worth a visit. The Great Smoky Mountains are part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which belong to the Appalachian Mountain chain (and thanks to our last exam we all know where the Appalachian Mountains are ;)). The highest point with 6.643 feet (2.025 meters) is at the summit of “Clingmans Dome”. The park has a number of historical attractions and a beautiful waterfall, there are many possibilities to go hiking and you can go fishing and horseback riding. At the entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park you can find a town called Cherokee. There are many museums, where you can learn about the history of the Cherokee Indian Tribe, and you can find some shops where you can buy typical jewelry and crafts.

 

There are many other places in North Carolina which are worth visiting, like Charlotte, Asheville and so on, but the ones I mentioned above are my favorites. So if you ever get the chance to visit and explore North Carolina, just give it a try. Of course it’s gonna be something completely different than visiting NYC or LA, but it can be really nice to enjoy some nature and some beautiful and historical towns for a change :)

(source: Wikipedia & own experiences)

Curtains up - it's movie time!

I have to admit it – I am addicted to (good!) movies, and I just LOVE going to the movie theater. While being in NC some friends (who are as crazy about movies as I am) and I often went to the movies more than once a week – watching a good movie was just so relaxing after taking care of our host kids. There was a movie theater about 20 minutes away from where I lived – where each show only costs 2$ - my host mom used to say that the theater was my 3rd home ;)

Anyway, since I came back I haven’t been to the movies very often – mainly because of the (in my opinion way too) high ticket prices, and because there is no movie theater in Graz which shows English movies - or at least so I thought!

There actually is a little movie theater close to the tram station “Finanzamt” (Conrad von Hötzendorfstraße), which is called “Kiz Royal Kino”. It shows movies in their original language – with and without subtitles, depending on the movie. I’ve been there only once so far, but am definitely gonna go there more often as soon as all the exams are over. It’s rather small, but the seats are really comfy, the popcorn is yummy and best of all – it’s much cheaper than Cineplexx or UCI! My sister and I were there on a Saturday evening and paid 5,90€ each – if you want to watch a movie on a Saturday night at Cineplexx you pay almost double the price!

Although they don't show as many movies as Cineplexx or UCI do, they still offer some movies to choose from and always show at least two or three popular ones. Right now they show "The Hobbit", "Rise of the Guardians", "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and many more. Here is the link to their homepage: http://www.uncut.at/graz/kizroyal/



If anyone wants to see an English movie just let me know, maybe we could go together :)

Love is in the book umm air…

Hey guys,

today I’d like to tell you a little bit about one of my favorite authors: Nicholas Sparks. I love reading and I like pretty much all genres – I love Harry Potter, the Twilight-Saga, The Hunger Games Trilogy, Dan Brown books, Simon Beckett, classics like Pride and Prejudice,... – but the author I’d like to tell you about doesn't write Science-Fiction, Fantasy or Crime Novels – he writes about love. He was born in North Carolina and is an American novelist and screenwriter – and all his books play in and around my “second home” Raleigh – small cities/towns like Wilmington, Wrightsville Beach, New Bern, Beaufort or Southport.



You might actually know some of his most famous books, maybe because you read them, or maybe you have already watched a movie based on one of his novels. Since most of you have German as your mother tongue I’m gonna give you the English as well as the German title of the books/movies, because usually if I say “you now, Nicholas Sparks, the author of >The Notebook< or the >Lucky One<", everybody is like “what the heck are you talking about?”, but as soon as I say “well, the German names of the movies are something like >Wie ein einziger Tag< and >Für immer der Deine<" everybody is like "Oh yeah, I know that movie, it's awesome!".

• So here’s the list of some of his books:
• The Notebook (Wie ein einziger Tag)
• A Walk to Remember (Zeit im Wind)
• Dear John (Das Leuchten der Stille)
• The Choice (Bis zum letzten Tag)
• The Lucky One (Für immer der Deine)
• The Last Song (Mit dir an meiner Seite)
• Safe Haven (Wie ein Licht in der Nacht)

I actually HATE the German titles of the books/movies – they make them sound way cheesier than they actually are. I read all of the books listed above, but the ones I liked the most were “The Notebook”, “The Choice”, “The Lucky One” and a few days ago I added “Safe Haven” to my fav list – I just loved it.



It’s about a woman who gets beaten and controlled by her husband, but since he is a cop she can’t go to the police. After trying to escape two times he threatens to kill her – and she tries to escape a last time, knowing that if it doesn’t work out now, she’s gonna be dead pretty soon. She actually manages to escape – but her scrupulous, violent and after she left always drunk husband swears to himself that he’s gonna find and finally kill her (or take her home, because he still loves her - he is a pretty weird and creepy guy). But will he find her? And what will he do to the man she falls in love with? Well, to get those answers you will just have to read the book, sorry guys ;)

But let me tell you – it’s totally worth reading (as are all of Sparks’ books) – I finished it in 2 days, coz I just couldn’t put it down.

Oh and btw – this book was also adapted as a movie – can't wait for February when it will be shown in Austrian movie theaters as well :)
And of course it plays – what a surprise – in North Carolina. Some friends and I were actually in Southport (where most part of the book plays) when it was filmed and we actually got a glimpse of the film crew and might even be somewhere in the background in the movie, because we were watching the 4th of July Parade just opposite of the film crew – if we really are in it I am definitely gonna write about it, I'll keep you posted ;)

Home is where your heart is ♥

 

HOME – the best place on earth. But what does home mean? And is it possible to call more than one place your „home“?

I live in Werndorf, where I also grew up, where my family lives and where everything is familiar to me. Until last year Werndorf has been my „only home“ – but in August 2011 everything changed.

After graduating from High school I decided it was time to explore the world and try something different. I thought about going abroad as an Au Pair – and since I’ve always wanted to go to the USA my dream destination was set. Everything worked out perfectly and Cultural Care (my agency) matched me with a family in Raleigh, NC. On August 14th 2011 I said goodbye to my family and friends and was off to the USA.

From the beginning my host family made me feel welcome and did not treat me like a stranger (which I actually was) at all and soon I felt like a real part of their family. I took care of two adorable boys – Micah was 5 and Nic was 4 when I arrived. They are now already 7 and 5 years old and cheerful, adventurous and absolutely lovely boys, who sometimes have just way too much energy. Even now, almost 5 months after I came back to Austria I still miss them a lot.

But it was not only my host family who made the year I spent in the USA as unforgettable and amazing as it was – I also met many people from all over the world, who became really close friends. Of course there were times when I missed my family and friends from Austria – but I never regretted the decision to go abroad for a year. It has been one of the best years of my life so far and I’m so thankful for everything I experienced, the people I met and the great times we had.

So to answer the questions above: For me “home” is a place where I have family and friends, where I feel happy, secure, welcomed and loved. But I associate all these things not only with my hometown Werndorf, but also with my (how I like to call it) second home – North Carolina. So for me it definitely is possible to have two homes, and a part of my heart will always remain in North Carolina with my family and friends, and I’m SO looking forward to seeing them (hopefully really soon) again.



Thank you guys for the past year, you are the best! ♥