No words could truly capture

Once upon a time, in a land far away (for some) 8 girls gathered in a condo above the streets of downtown Wilmington. Not sure what to expect some prepared themselves with nerve calming potions. These potions caught on, and were well received and had by all, well almost all, throughout the week. The entire adventure was a magical experience, these 8 girls got along, enjoyed each others company, had a ball, and formed a bond.

I have been anticipating this trip for a couple months, but had no idea what to expect. All I know is I wasn’t expecting to leave having made some of the greatest friends. Kim, Megan, Becca, Andrea, Lauren, Dani, and Liz are the funniest, sweetest, craziest girls, and I had a blast with all of them! I am so lucky to have had this opportunity! One that I will never forget. There's a great collection of videos and photos taken by all that showcase a large part of this excellent adventure, there's just not a lot of words that can describe the experiance, and what it meant.

I met Kim and Liz Monday night before the rest of the gang arrived. I didn't think I was nervous, but I still didn't know what to expect. But at one point the waitress asked how we were and both Kim and I said nothing but gave her a thumbs up. We had a chuckle and that moment made me feel pretty comfortable with this gathering. We were able to joke about Canada/US differences right off the bat too, which was cool, we straightened out our north’s and south’s.

Tuesday began with the meeting of Megan, Andrea, Liz and myself. We checked out the condo, and went for some lunch at Cafe Phoenix. Again, we could laugh together right away. Jokes made about accents, which was kind of a reoccurring theme when you have 8 different ones. A little while later Becca and Dani arrived, I met them to help them with luggage, I didn't even ask where they were parked, thought of that after, I could have been meandering all over downtown. But, I found them, and by now I was so comfortable with the girls I met already, I knew this would be just like meeting an old friend, or so I was hoping, and it was. It was a 'hey, how are you? Need some help with that bag?’
After getting acquainted with everyone and did some dancing in the condo, got a little violent with some chocolate syrup, and did some cheersing, we took our first night together to Paddy's Hollow for some dinner, and some close calls with some sharp cutlery, also saw some magical beverage shooting, kudos to Kim. Violence became quite common. Then it was off to the Whiskey to see Bibis, which I thought was the perfect ice breaker for all of us. We cheered, probably loudly, and she realized the group that came, we proceeded to cheer louder, and she replied with 'Welcome to Wilmington bitches!'. Much wooing was had by Kim and myself, Megan and Andrea enjoyed some dancing. Many of us and other whiskey attenders enjoyed their dancing as well. Bibis was amazing, or I would say phenomenal but it was so much more. *shakes head at herself* By the end we were all shoulder to shoulder swaying together to Hallelujah. It was beautiful, it was like being at church according to Lauren. After Bibis it was time for a late snack, so Taco Bell it was! I ordered Megan a ‘double decker condo’, and lost one of Kim's twisty things (found it the next day, phewsh, I was worried about that).

Wednesday we went separate ways for a bit. Becca and I had a frustrating argument with the sofa bed, and after quite the struggle we were able to defeat it. We all met up at the Reel Cafe for lunch with a pedestrian. We enjoyed our first recap of night one, some lunch, and some water. We also got to check out the rooftop bar there, which was super cool, pretty view. Things were starting to get pretty toasty, so Lauren navigated us to our first trip to the beach, which was beautiful. Good laughs had again, some seagull chasing attempts were made here, a tumble, some squid/jelly fish poking (no one could quite figure out what it was), and some wonderful photographs were taken. Great time!!
Supper was had at the condo that night. Andrea made some lovely spaghetti! We enjoyed a great game of beer pong, had even more laughs as ping pongs were winged through the air, minor injuries occurred but all in good fun! Bon qui qui was quoted a lot, personally I think Lauren does a dead on impression! We also enjoyed a good game of waterfall. Becca I think was a little tipsy off her water. Megan also found some new words for the dictionary, and color wheel. She came up with the color suave’…. which we then had a conversation trying to figure out what color it would actually be. Another round was rhyming, and the word to by rhymed with was ‘tuba’, granted not a whole lot comes to mind…. but what is maruba?? All I know is that it made us break out in song, ‘Aruba, Jamaica, oh I wanna take ya to Bermuda, Bahamas…’ We quite often broke in to song. I loved it! I really enjoyed Becca’s rendition of ‘I went to the river to pray’ from Oh Brother Where Art Thou! We then decided to move our party outside of the condo, so we hit the streets of downtown and made our way to the Copper Penny to hang out, watch some baseball. We also made a stop back at the Reel Café. We turned in a little earlier that night (which really wasn’t all that early).

Thursday was another great day! A few went their separate ways again for a short time. Becca, Dani, Liz and I took a drive and saw some sites. I got out to snap a shot of an old house, a bee swarmed me and I jumped and flailed, and woo'd. When I returned the ladies in the car found it quite amusing how excited I was to see this house, they thought I was wooing and jumping up and down with excitement, I had to reassure them that the excitement was only that of being frightened by a bee.
We picked up Kim and Lauren for some more outings. 6 people in the car was quite cozy and quite hilarious. Really glad I was introduced to Chick-fil-a! Their milkshakes are great, and who doesn’t love an all chicken restaurant? Also very tricky to eat your chick-fil-a when packed in. Lauren had to 'dunk' (as she put it) when the cop drove by, got to be careful, don't want no tickets. We met KT at Screen Gem Studios for a tour of some of the OTH sets, and the new stage. It was amazing! Learned a lot, and saw a lot. Huge thanks to Kt for showing us around!! I also got pretty excited about a boat that was set outside, Becca found this quite amusing. We also made another stop down at the beach took a walk out on the pier, enjoyed a woman’s first shark catching experience. For dinner we met up with Kt at Caffé Phoenix. This was an amazing experience. Being able to chat with Kt and the others over a wonderful meal. I also had the opportunity to give him the message in a bottle with everyone’s letters, creativity and support from all over the world. It was so great to be able to see his reaction to all that. I am so grateful that these 7 girls got to experience that with me. After dinner was going to be a little more relaxing evening. This was the night we brought to life The Facts Of Life. The whole thing was hilarious! The outtakes were awesome. All our videos are quite random and so incredibly funny. Later on we headed back to the beach to check out some late night filming. This was really interesting. I quite enjoyed watching the process of it…out of the corner of my eye because we were told to ‘act natural’ while watching. Everyone started to get pretty tired so we made our way back to the condo. However Lauren, Becca, and myself weren’t really feeling like Mr. Sandman was headed our way anytime soon, so we stayed up giggling, and were in stitches at some points, Lauren’s sides were starting to ache. Pretty sure a lot of the laughter stemmed from a certain photo with a certain hairdo. We had an urge to head down to the river walk to watch the sun rise, Becca was so excited, but we changed our minds, poor girl was so disappointed. However, it’s a good thing we never went, little did we know that at 5:30am the sun rises in the east, not the west. So we totally would have missed it.

Friday was a full day for us. And I’m really glad it was, kept my mind from thinking about Saturday’s departure. We took a lovely walk through Airlie Garden’s. I was so confused why the tree’s there were hairy, but apparently it’s ‘spanish moss’. At one point I was pretty sure I saw a cat, but it was just more of the moss. We cooled off at the fountain; I was a little worried Andrea was going to take another fall inside there. But luckily she came out dry. We also came upon a huge flock of Canadian Geese, which was cool since I told Becca I would bring one, so boy did I deliver! Felt bad however by the mess they left, and that Liz had to come across it the way she did. After the garden’s we headed over to the Bellamy mansion, beautiful 140 year old home with incredible history. The return to the beach was next with our SoGoPro tshirts. Lovely photos were taken of us in them, and a fantastic video of us (not quite all of us) running in to the water was shot! The video turned out quite hilarious, Andrea biffed it before the water, Kim got to witness it first hand, which was funny to watch. We swam for a while, got beat up by a few waves, and buried Andrea in the sand. Our last night (sad face) found us making a vlog about our trip. It’s quite random, and there’s much laughing, but it really showcased our trip I think. The best part was probably Dani’s comment about the trip, ‘I think I am the only sane person here’. She was dead on. When the video was finished we made our way up one floor to Level 5. It is an awesome rooftop bar. We kind of ended it with the party we started it with; it was perfect. We hung out, did some dancing, enjoyed some music, and headed for pizza. That night 4 girls shared one futon and I took the floor with a fitted sheet, how do you sleep in a fitted sheet? 'Fitted' was Becca's answer. Megan turned on the camera when we returned and captured our last evening moment together, right up until we fell asleep-she forgot the camera was rolling, we all did. Becca tried to say goodbye that night so she wouldn’t have to wake us in the morning. That was not happening! I needed a moment that night, got a little teary eyed early on.

Saturday was an extremely sad day. The trip was coming to a close, this dream of a vacation was ending. The goodbye’s were hard, starting with Dani and Becca’s. We corrupted poor Becca all week, but she is so awesome, she gave us the perfect farewell with a ‘bye bitches’. Then it was Liz’s goodbye, I thought for a moment that the goodbye’s might get easier, gee was I wrong. Kim, Andrea, and Lauren came to the airport to bid Megan and I farewell. Thank goodness for sunglasses, there were a lot of tears hidden behind them. Megan got on my flight so we didn’t have to leave as early. So Megan called Kim to pick us up. At first it was funny, like thanks for letting me see the airport, now where we to? But then I realized we would have to do the goodbye scene all over again. So we got to spend a little more time together at Kim’s, watch some old school 90210, and enjoyed Andrea’s video some more. The flight was delayed, this should have just been the sign we were to stay, it wasn’t the first. We realized if this flight is delayed and our next one is on time we miss it, but the other one was delayed. So we were safe there, but that means I may not be safe on making it the one after that. We went to board, and Delta messed up and put Megan on a separate plane, she tried to threaten me before with ‘i will cut you’ to make me get on the plane, I’m glad I didn’t listen or I wouldn’t have gotten to say goodbye, even though it was really quick. Things got even sadder here because that was really the end. I sat down, turned on my ipod for comfort music, hit shuffle, and what song came on? Hallelujah, oh lordy, how perfect, but sunglasses had to remain on. I whispered woosah and settled in for my flight home.

The friendships, the memories, the laughs will go on. But it was so emotional because we had become so close over that one week, it’s an incredible thing, something that is hard to find the words for. I don’t even know if there are words to describe it, to portray the feeling from the experience, or what it has meant to me. I have never stepped outside, and ventured, and explored as much as I did last week. Southern Gothic has created a wonderful community, it is full of inspiration, and heart, and determination, and has already done so much for me; and now has brought me to these amazing people that I cherish and that I am forever thankful for. I am so grateful to SGP for this. I already miss them, and the fun craziness, and the laughter. I will see them again, hopefully sooner than later, but until then I will talk to these friends as often as I can, and anticipate that day.