first impressions of columbus, ga

the south is really different. i like it, but it's weird to me.

when i lived in maui, i felt like i belonged. it was totally different than where i grew up (lancaster, pa) as well, but i could easily get into the rhythm of hawaiian culture and i loved it. i don't know if i can see myself ever quite fitting into southern culture. or maybe it's that i don't want to, because the main difference i've noticed so far is diet. fried food and southern comfort foods are featured in the grocery stores. tons of crisco, grits, and other things i wasn't used to seeing line the aisles of grocery stores in pennsylvania.

i have never seen so many fast food places in such close proximity, and i have no idea why anyone would need this many waffle houses or mcdonalds. yuck.

last week when i asked our waitress about a dish i was considering ordering (caesar salad with thai fried shrimp) she said, "it's fried! it's good!" it made me laugh - as if frying something means it is automatically good. but then i am probably in the minority for not agreeing with that sentiment. i ordered it and it was delicious. so help me God if i start eating like a southerner. eek!

other first impressions of life in columbus, ga ...

- i love our apartment and i love apartment living! we have plenty of space but not too much to clean. it was awesome when my parents came down with our stuff and we could really make it home. we had taken some essentials down with us, but couldn't fit much in my car and forgot a shower curtain so the bathroom was a mess for the first few days we were here.

- lance did an awesome job picking a place and frankly i feel like i'm on vacation sometimes. the weather is perfect this time of year. our apartment complex has awesome pools, a nice fitness center (complete with saunas i won't use and free classes i will use - yesterday i did zumba and was of course the only person in the class, ha.), and a pond with ducks that wander all over the place.

- love being a short drive away from places we go - grocery store, restaurants, crossfit, downtown, and all of my faves in ONE shopping center: barnes & noble, ross, tjmaxx and marshalls. (that's a good shopping center!)

- southerners are generally very polite and well-mannered. i love it.

- people stand on street corners selling newspapers. i feel like i'm back in time.

- store employees walk your groceries out to your car for you. again, i feel like i'm back in time. this was incredibly perplexing for lance and i the first time it happened. so much so that we temporarily forgot where we parked and had the person zigzagging behind us in the parking lot, whoops.

- my first trip to the commissary (the grocery store on the army base) has led me to call it the cuh-misery, or just the misery, instead of pronouncing it correctly. it made me really glad that lance wanted to live OFF base. the store was packed out to the max and people were ramming carts around like it was a freaking nascar race. i felt like i was in a third world country. you could barely get to the shelves to get what you wanted and the line you wait in at the end was so long they had someone directing carts to each checkout. insanity. way too stressful and aggressive of a shopping experience for me, but everything is apparently a wee bit cheaper there. so i guess i'll go back. sigh. publix is practically around the corner from us (and winn-dixie and piggly wiggly, ha.) and i like that much better.

- baptist churches are everywhere. so are goodwill donation centers. and of course fast food GALORE.

- i miss turkey hill milk and ice cream.

- lots of businesses here have ridiculous names that crack us up. i think the most obvious example is the piggly wiggly - how can anyone take that place seriously?!

- southern accents are so great. i was afraid i'd pick up a fake southern accent and it's already sort of happening. sometimes i can't help talking to lance with southern twang. it may have more to do with all the duck dynasty we've been watching, love that show.

- we found a gorgeous park near our house, and i'm excited to keep exploring and finding more gems in this area! i love finding hidden beauty! we drove past development after development, then bam! a beautiful park that stretched out for miles with waterfalls and rocks to climb on and nice trails. it was also unexpected because a recent review of it online said a man had been there with his two daughters and got mugged, and someone else said to never go there because "it's full of homosexuals at night." wow people. the anonymity of the internet is something else, personally i find that the positive reviews of places are usually much more accurate than the negative ones!

lance spotted this stork (maybe heron? we're not bird experts, help us out.) and it was perched on one leg beside the lake so still that we both agreed "it's fake ... but so realistic!" so we were walking down to get right beside it for a funny picture of lance posing by the fake stork, and we were no more than three feet away when it flew off! HA, not fake after all. we could not stop laughing. (if we were written about in old testament style, i feel that phrase would be repeated. "and they walked with God ... and they could not stop laughing.")

 it was so beautiful.we've been having a lot of awesome bird encounters lately. when we drove in my parents lane after our wedding rehearsal, i was exclaiming, "there's a blue jay! oh my word, i've officially turned into my grandma shank, getting excited about birds-" lance: "is that an eagle?!" and sure enough, there was an enormous bald eagle sitting on a branch beside the stream. 

it was the first eagle i ever saw at my parents house. it definitely made a special trip there for us. we sat watching it for awhile until we had to go because we were already late to pick up my friends at the airport. ("sorry guys, just doing some bird watching! totally normal!" ha.) God does so many cool things. ask Him to do something cool for you today or to open your eyes to what He already did for you - i am confident you will love it and He will keep surprising you if you let Him.