Day one

(I wrote this last night, loads more to write about the office and today in work. But I'll put this on first of all. Turns out I could connect but couldn't see any webpages! So not so good. Then I tried using the computers they had, but they didn't have USB ports! Grr!)

Well here I am in Lake Junaluska, NC. It’s really beautiful here. I gather from talking to George and Roma it’s kind of spiritual retreat centre. So I think if you imagine a small town based around Castlewellan lake, that’s Lake Junaluska. There are a lot of Methodist things here, not least the World Methodist Council! Also there’s the Musuem, which looks dull, but I’m being polite about it! There’s something call the Southeastern Jurisdiction which runs lots of things, I don’t really know! I’m staying in the Terrace Hotel, but more about that later. I think it is run by the SEJ too. At least I kind of hope it is, because the music they play through the lobby and all are hymns. Although I think I heard ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beatles earlier which is quite a contrast.

So I’ll start at the beginning. I left the house yesterday morning at 4.00am, drove to Dublin, and flew to Gatwick on the 8.30am flight. Had a window seat so saw the very last glimpse of Ireland. I was planning to sleep on the plane, but instead read the in-flight magazine! Read an article about a high speed train in Shanghai, it floats! Ok, so I didn’t fully understand it but it’s about a centimetre above the rails, something to do with magnets (I guess repelling)! Crazy! Hmm…just read that back, makes me sound quite, quite dull. It was actually interesting though.

When I arrived at Gatwick I successfully managed to make it to the shops, oh and the gates. I made a last flurry of text messages and calls. Bought some batteries in Boots with my points and a packet of Thai Sweet Chilli crisps (just ate them, mmn mmn!). Eventually it was time to go to the gate.


The departure boards. Lucky flight BA2227 to Atlanta.


Big water feature, water flows down the side! Am I easily impressed?!

I cried as I was going through, and this must have attracted attention because the woman called me over for a random security check. She checked all through my hand luggage (she took particular interest in my metal Bible, the but opportunity to evangelise passed by) and kept asking me was I alright. Bless.

I had an aisle seat on the flight, yay. I’d requested it in Dublin, clever Tina! So that was nice. Ever nicer was that the row was the end of the section so I could put my seat back all the way without feeling bad that it was in someone else’s face. And better yet, was the fact that the middle seat was empty. I shared it with a funny (ha ha, not peculiar) Scottish bloke (unlike the flight to Rio when the Phil Collins lookalike sat in it and had the empty seat to himself! Still annoys me!). Good old BA have the individual screens in the headrest infront. I tried to watch a few films but really couldn’t get interested. But they also showed TV programmes, so watched the first episode of Desperate Housewives, and episodes of the West Wing, Supernanny and Extras.

Eventually we arrived into Atlanta, time flies (boom boom!). I joined the huge queue for Customs and Immigration. I changed queue at the right moment, they opened another ‘checkout’ and suddenly we were at the front! Made it through, and was happily reunited with my luggage. Although that was short lived, as they were handed back to go to the exit. May I recommend if you ever fly in to Atlanta that you bring walking shoes, water and food supplies, and have light hand luggage. The exit is about a mile away, no really! There’s a little train thing to take you some of the way, but if you are like me and a woman from Portsmouth you’ll be told to get off at the wrong place. Grr! I actually think I would have sat in a corner and cried had it not been for the flame-haired Portsmouth lady.

The seemingly never ending corridor did end and George was waiting at it, with a green (you know, because I’m Irish) sign saying ‘Tina’. It looked a little out of place amongst all the proper signs. We set off to drive to Lake Junaluska, stopping to call the parents and have tea. Talked quite a lot to George on the way up, he’s very nice. He told me the exciting news that I had my own office and I started to imagine the brromcupboard they had transformed into an ‘office’! It took about 3 hours to get here. I slept a bit, when George stopped talking! We drove to the Terrace Hotel, ‘swinging by’ (his words, not mine) to pick up Virginia, his wife. She said ‘bless your heart’ about 7 times in the first 15 minutes of being with her! She’s also lovely, she gave me a welcome pack.


The welcome pack. Including: Apple juice, orange juice, coke, Twinings Irish Breakfast tea, hot chocolate, a cup to put my beverages in, crackers (peanut butter flavour!), malted milk balls (a very poor man’s malteasers I discovered to my disappointment), maple nuts covered in something, some sort of fruit loaf looking tray bake article (yet to try), a fridge magnet of the white cross (see below), a little nugget thing thing which has pray written on it and an angel, and perhaps the most interesting item (left of the red Nestle box) – a heat up element you put in a cup of cold water to boil it for your tea/coffee. Don’t quite know how to tell her I don’t drink tea or coffee!

My room in the hotel is lovely. Two double beds, en suite and TV. 26 hours after leaving Whitehead I was in bed. Zzzzz


Messy already!


The view from my room, that’ll be the lake.

I was rudely awakened at 6.30 by the alarm clock. Grr grr grr! But went back to sleep and woke at 10.00am. I got up, watched a bit of TV. There’s even a West Wing on at 11.00am! What a great country! Eventually I called Roma at 12.00, that bears no relation to the West Wing ending, a simple coincidene! George and Roma came over and we had lunch in the hotel. It was nice to finally meet Roma. She seems really lovely too. Again, more polite conversation ensued.

We went to look at the apartment she had found. Tiny! Basically 2 rooms, a bedroom and kitchen slash living room. Roma said she was disappointed with it so she’s looking again. It might be that I live there for a while. It is really close to the office and right on the lake, but it’s teeny. Also there’s no air conditioning. That might be alright for winter but not summer. I couldn’t believe how warm it is here. It would have been shorts weather at home, but it’s October!! Crazy!

Roma took me over to the office and showed me around. Very nice! I also was shown my office. I get a laptop too. Impressive! I really did land on my feet!


My office! Also you can see my work laptop, it’s one of those ones with the shiny widescreen. The door on the very right is my store (I have a store!).


My desk. The boxes are brochures for the conference. I’m sure I can put them elsewhere. Perhaps in the store?


The view from my office. It’s taken through the blinds and the window has that mosquito cover thing but if you can look past that, it’s pretty.

Then after reading a bit about the World Methodist Conference I came back to the hotel. I had nothing to do tonight. I had dinner in the hotel. Spaghetti (in what can only be described as butter sauce, weird American cooking! No wonder there’s an obesity problem) Bolognese. After tea I decided to walk around the lake. Seriously, all the thousands of times I’ve been to Castlewellan I’ve never once walked around the lake, but on my first day in Lake Junaluska, I walk round the lake.


The lake from the other side of my hotel and office


Zoomed for this one so it's not the best quality. The big building on the right is the Terrace hotel, to the left of it, the building with the white pillars is the museum, left of it, with the red roof is the office



The World Methodist Council building. My office is the ground floor, 2 most left windows.

The lake is very, very pretty. But it highlighted again to me that this really is Methodistville. The walkway around the lake have the flame and cross logo of the United Methodist Church. A family cycled past me and the girl shouted to her brother, 'Wesley wait!'. Well, what else would he be called?!

If you do a google image search for ‘Lake Junaluska’ you’ll see the white cross they have here right by the lake. Channel 10 on my TV in the hotel is of the cross. I think it must be a live feed. Why would you need to see the cross from your living room? Maybe it’s supposed to be one of those atmospheric screen things, you know like the open fire one. At night in true Las Vegas styley they light it up, bit tacky looking in my opinion, but then Americans are used to lighting up churches with big neon signs and what not.


Ok, so it was quite dark when this was taken, but in it you can see the cross all lit up.

It only took about 40 minutes to go round. I’m going to have a goal to be able to run all the way around by the time I leave. I know, I set my goals high! But I’m really not a fan of running, so I’m proud of at least having the goal to begin with.