Homestay Tour #6 – Rome, Georgia

Rome, Georgia

After being on the road for almost 3 weeks, we headed to our last stop of our homestay tour on August 26th. The 8-hour bus ride from Lexington, Kentucky to Atlanta, Georgia went by pretty quickly with reading, listening to music and writing my blog PLUS there was WIFI on the bus. The only thing we forgot to take was food – so after 8 hours we were starving!!!
We stopped in Knoxville and Chattanooga, both Tennessee, until we finally arrived in Atlanta at 6 pm at the Marta Civic Center, a huge bus station in downtown Atlanta. Since we were a little early and the station was so big we decided to call our new host Ron. Luckily he was already there and we found him easily. Ron is also a former CBYX participant and stayed in Germany 3 years ago. As I already mentioned we were starving and that’s why our very first stop was to get something to eat. Since we have been hungry for so long, we had even forgotten how hungry we actually were until we finally got our food. That was just what we needed! From there it took us another hour to get to Ron’s house in Rome, Georgia which is a town about 1 1/2 hours north-west of Atlanta. While driving all the way we already got to know each other a little bit better.
Ron lives in a very big house which is divided into two sections. In one he lives, in the other one his best friend Dustin. In between their sections they have a lovely roofed terrace where we spend the first evening chatting all together.

Our first day had a serious slow start since Ron had to work and Philipp and I just slept in and just hung out. In the noon his roommate Dustin came back home and kindly drove us to downtown Rome. After getting some Thai lunch (which was so good after burgers and fries for so many times) we started walking through hot Rome. It seemed a little bit like time stopped in that little town. No restaurant or other store chains, and everything was ‘just’ open from 10 – 6 with a lunch break from 2 – 4. I think there don’t exist many places like that anymore in the USA. We walked at the banks of Rome’s rivers (there are 2 meeting in the center of Rome) and tried to discover some nice places around town.

Fountain in downtown Rome

Lovely banks at Oostanaula River

Coosa River

Unfortunately it was closed

Bridge over Oostanaula River

We ended up visiting the old Courthouse, walked into a few small shops and ended up on a massive and old graveyard which was located on a hill just above Rome. Most of the graves on Myrtle Hill Cemetery were from the late 19th century!!! It was unbelievable and also so different to what graveyards look like in Germany. You could drive with your car on the cemetery and most of the graves were just very old and not taken care of in many, many years, I assume. The setting though was really nice on that hill and we enjoyed a great view over the city.

Myrtle Hill Cemetery

View over Rome, Georgia

Ancient columns

The angel overlooking the graveyard

Hundreds of graves

In the afternoon Ron picked us up and showed us some more places of interest in Rome. One of the coolest things was definitely ‘Berry College’. The college is private and is proud to say about themselves to have the ‘largest contiguous campus in the world’!
Indeed it was huge! Of course we drove again with the car and saw that this college has farms, forests, an own cattle breed, a small river and beautiful old buildings which are used as dorms. The college is obviously very expensive but I am sure it is a very cool experience studying at a college with the size of a whole town!

Berry College

These buildings are actually dorms where students live

It looked very European to us

Everywhere little towers and turrets

My castle

Huge water wheel in the woods of Berry College

  
We went to a cigar bar where we met some of Ron’s friends and later continued to a Mexican place called ‘Las Palmas’ (how weird!) and met some other friends there as well. We had some good food, cheap beer and overall a nice evening.

Thursday was a chill day for sure. After we have been hanging out at home the whole day, Philipp and I became hungry and since we couldn’t leave the house there was just one other option: ordering pizza. We figured it out (although it took us a while) and within no time the pizza was right on our lap! Since we had a coupon it was cheaper to get 2 large pizzas – and you know what large means in the USA. So we had plenty of leftovers and a lovely breakfast and another lunch the next day!

Highlight of the day: eating pizza while watching King of Queens

Besides that we just didn’t do anything and just accompanied Ron and Dustin to get their dinner, so we did leave the house at least once that day.

Friday Alexander, another participant of the 31st CBYX program who’s final placement is in Atlanta came by to hang out. That was surely a nice change and interesting to hear what he experienced so far. We just hung out at home all day until we went later with Ron to ALDI which just opened that day in Rome. It was great to see how excited people got over an opening of ALDI!!! But surely the most funny part about it was, that there was a guy just to explain to the people how to insert the coin into their shopping cart and how to get it out again – a job that doesn’t exist in Germany for sure!
Since it was Friday Ron wanted to show us the nightlife of Rome and also a baseball game that took place that night. So we had a couple of drinks at their house until Ron, Dustin, Alexander, Philipp and I took off to the baseball stadium to see the last half of the match. It surely is a nice sport but if you don’t know the rules, like me, it tends to get very boring. But luckily we found some guys and the cheerleader of the team to talk to. They were super nice (and to me veeery American) and it was lovely chatting to them.

Baseball match: Rome Braves against Savannah Sand Gnats

I don’t get the rules…

When the match was done we went downtown to check out some bars and places. There wasn’t too much going on but it was still interesting to see and we had a fun night until 2 o’clock because that’s the time when everything is over and everyone needs to go home. This is quiet different to me because in Berlin there is no limit to when bars or clubs close.

Nightlife in Rome

Philipp, myself and Alexander

Since we didn’t have anything for dinner, we decided to have a late dinner or an early breakfast at 3 am at IHOP – how classy! It was great fun seeing all these party animals getting food and we were just right in between.

Dustin, Ron and the three Germans at IHOP

Our last full day was Saturday, August 30st. After sleeping in we made our way up to Ron’s dad who lives around half an hour outside of Rome in the wonderful countryside. He lives in a big and beautiful house with his wife Lilly who is from Romania but lived in Germany for 20 years and her daughter Jenny. They gave us such a warm welcome and a great and rich lunch as well. It was lovely meeting them and having a great afternoon in their backyard. The family owns a big area of land as well as a massive swimming pool. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my bikini and therefore I only had to be satisfied by putting my feet into the lovely water which was still so nice.

Wonderful house in the countryside

Just like the movies… Love it!!

Huge back porch with their pool

I loved that swing on that old tree!!!

Since Ron’s dad, Ron Sr., is a police officer he showed us some guns and him shooting in his backyard. We three Germans who probably never saw real guns ever before were definitely very surprised and impressed.

Casual Saturday afternoon…

Ron presenting his gun

Lilly giving him a hand for his shooting

The Germans being impressed with Ron’s shooting

To round up our stay in Rome, we went back home, hung out, watched some football, King of Queens, zapped through the 1000 channels and finally went out to get dinner. It started raining by then but it just felt like in the tropics. A heavy shower but the temperature didn’t go down but the humidity on the contrary increased immediately.

The next morning was not just our last morning in Rome, Georgia, but also the last day of the beloved homestay tour. It was surely one of the weirdest feelings. We have been on the road for such a long time and telling everyone that in the end we will go to Portland, Oregon… It always seemed to be so so soooo far away, but it was actually happening that day!
Alexander took us from Rome to the Hartfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta – the biggest airport in the world! We flew out at 3:25 with Frontier Airlines to Denver, Colorado where we changed air planes to go to Portland International Airport from there. Since we had some delays, we made it just in time to catch our second flight in Denver. In the end everything worked out great and we arrived in Portland on August 31st.

My homestay tour was officially over!
Around 2000 miles from New York to Atlanta. 27 days. 9 states. 6 cities. 5 host families. 1 travel partner. 148713 cornfields. 100 degrees average temperature. Many burgers and visits at fast food restaurants. Uncountable great conversations and wonderful people. To sum up – an unforgettable experience!

Although living out of my suitcase for almost 4 weeks and saying many goodbyes after just a few days was tough, I wouldn’t ever change it. Until today I cannot believe how hospitable each and every host family was – how interested, accepting and dedicated to give us the best time at their places. Thank you again for hosting us and taking all the time to show us the most beautiful places in your area!
As most of you know, traveling is my favorite thing to do and I feel so lucky that I got the opportunity to do what I love most. When I was entering the air plane in Atlanta to fly to my final placement I had this aching strange feeling inside me that said: ‘The long, exciting holiday is over’. I felt like I need to go back to school after an amazing summer holiday – a little bit sad but full of new experiences and pictures in my head. But then it hit me:  this is not the end, it is actually just the beginning: MY BIGGEST ADVENTURE WAS JUST ABOUT TO START!

Although the homestay tour and all the traveling came to an end, I will never forget these first weeks of my USA stay! Of course I was also a little bit afraid and concerned about the serious part that was beginning now like, choosing college classes, buying a car, getting a Social Security Card, an American phone number, settling in with the host family and so on… But I need to be honest with myself: living, studying and working at a place where I have never been before at the other side of the world – that is the greatest opportunity ever.

I was ready to go! Ready for Portland! Ready for my big new adventure! Here we go!

Anneke