Barn Dance & Dickson, TN

Another week's gone already?! 

I've got good friends with a girl from one of my classes, Lauren. She studied in Swansea last year (where Georgia & Phoebe go) with her friend Devin so I'd said we should all do something so that they can meet. So in a typical friendly Southern way, they invited us all to their house for dinner on Thursday and then to a barn dance! Lauren picked us up from our halls and drove us to their where they'd ordered in pizza and pumpking beer for us which was really great of them. We had a good laugh all sharing one thing in common - our love of Nando's!

Seasonal Drinks

After being fed (which was lovely) and watered with pumpkin beer (which was not so lovely) we drove about 20 minutes away, in our checked shirts and boots, to a random barn owned by one of their friends, where there were about 100 students and a live band. It was another one of those "I feel like I'm in a movie" moments. We were straight into it and once again the 'Muricans didn't disappoint with their sober dance moves. I even had to sit one of the dances out because the clapping got too intense and I was worried about re-breaking my wrist!

Phoebe, Jade, Devin, Lauren, Georgia and Annabelle

 We finished the night off with smores and hot chocolate around a bonfire!

British Barn Dancers

On Friday I nipped Downtown to sort my bank out, I love wandering around there, there's always some kind of festival or parade going on. They'd just finished putting up the Christmas tree and it looks great. It's the first mention of Christmas that I've heard so far, seen as there's so much other stuff going on, but I'm looking forward to going to some of the Christmas events over the next couple of weeks.

Christmas Tree, Downtown Knoxville

Then, before I knew it it was the weekend again and I was heading to Dickson, Tennessee with some friends from Church. We were heading to a retreat centre, but got to stop in Downtown Nashville for lunch. We ate at a place called Noshville, which amused be greatly. I had a really nice, relaxing weekend with some of the lovely people I've met from Church here and the place where we stayed was beautiful! The weather once again came up trumps for the weekend and we even got to sit outside to eat dinner in t-shirts on Sunday.

Bethany House, Dickson TN

There looked to be so much to do in Downtown Nashville so I would have been sad not to get to spend time there, but I'm heading back on Wednesday/Thursday to spend Thanksgiving there! :)
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I've just had my first dinner at the International house - we watched last years Macy's Day Parade which looks great and learned about the history of Thanksgiving from some old Knoxvillians. Lots more to look forward to this week!