We've all heard the story. Small town girl with big aspirations moves to big city and WOW life changes, blah, blah, blah.
What I'm here to talk about is a somewhat parallel concept, just on a much smaller scale. Think Fanny Brice moves to NY and for a good half-hour they film Barbara gorging herself on Chinese food.
OK, so I'm no Fanny but I can relate to the BIG change that is moving to ginormous new place. I am from Wilburton, Oklahoma, and if you aren't familiar with it (which the 314 dollars in my bank account says you aren't) think a quaint little town with more cows than people that is a good forty-five minutes away from the holy land of Wal-Mart.
My parents are alpaca farmers. NOT llama farmers. Alpacas are WAY cuter than llamas (sorry for that spurt of anti-llama propaganda but this comes up a lot). Anyway, the house I grew up in is far from civilization and could be given the alternate definition of petting zoo.
When I moved out last year to go to college I had no idea how much life was going to change.
Like, WOAH.
You may say, "Why yes, of course, the differences are so obvious; more people, more places."
OK, well yes there's that, but those factors were more mesmerizing to me than culture-shock-y. Probably the number-one thing that really shouted at me "THIS IS A DIFFERENT WORLD" was...the...NOISE.
If I wasn't clear before, I grew up in the woods. Suddenly, birds chirping was replaced with city ambiance. I'm talking construction, traffic, and tornado sirens that increase your chances of needing a hearing aid before the ripe age of thirty by 100%.
Don't get me wrong, the city has been great and I'm grateful to be here. I am especially grateful one one thing in particular...
In Wilburton you had five restaurant options; Sonic Drive-In, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway, and our little home town Mexican restaurant, Adelita's. So as you can see, I really didn't know what I was missing. The city is amazing, fantastic, awesome-sauce because there is LITERALLY everything your heart could ever desire.
In conclusion, know that the epic pilgrimage from home to college will be saturated with dangerous and exotic experiences. In my case, that was tornado sirens and Panda Express.
