I think my favorite experiences while being in the US were on trips. I got to see whales which I wouldn’t normally have been able to see and I didn’t get really sea sick! I got to go stay with my roommate in Portland which was nice because she had such a lovely family and Portland was great. It was one of those cities that you felt at home in after a day. I went to Canada which was a nice experience to see the differences between there and here.

My most memorable experience had to be going to Crater Lake. It was memorable for several reasons. When we set off it was raining very heavily. In the UK we don’t really drive for a long time. An hour is a long trip to us by car whereas in the US this would seem like nothing. For Crater Lake we set off at about 4 and got there about midnight. It was far too long for what I was used to but I survived. Glad of some good company. We did got lost half way through the trip going in the wrong direction but we managed slowly to find our way towards Crater Lake. The rain slowly turned into snow and quite blizzardy snow too. It was dark but you could see the amount of snow by the road was far more than I’ve ever seen before.
The only problem was that we couldn’t find the key to the lodge. Everything was closed. The key was lost. No lodge. Freezing weather. The whole place began to look a bit like the end of the shining.
Luckily people found a fire station which was empty and we slept in there. At this point I was laughing so much. But it was better than sleeping in the car. We had bagels and put out our sleeping bags. It was madness to me when I come from a place where this would never happen. But I loved it because it was something I could never do at home. How many people can say that they have slept in a fire station and then had a ranger come in at 7am telling you to get out. He looked like rangers from the movies with his mustache and hat. It was the perfect end to that night.
When we got into the lodge and ate the spaghetti we were meant to have had the night before for breakfast we set off to do snowshoeing. I would recommend snow shoeing to anyone! It’s so much fun especially when it involves sliding down mounds of snow and walking through a forest of snow like you’re walking through Narnia. It was beautiful especially the views over the lake. We were so lucky to have such beautiful weather although it felt like it was making up for our bad luck the day before. I even got a sunburn!
It was a great trip!