That time I moved to America

I have MOVED!
Despite writing that sentence, packing my life away into a moving truck, spending the entire weekend settling into a new apartment in a different country – this still doesn’t seem quite real.
If you’ve spoken to me recently (read: any time this past summer), you know that the experience of moving from Canada to America has brought a wealth of learning moments. Like, being Canadian is a special category of ‘international students,’ and there are fun exceptions for Canadians entering America that are not mentioned anywhere online. Or, it will take numerous blood samples to prove you are flawlessly immune to Chicken Pox. Or, when trying to cross the border into your brand new country, you will be inevitably yelled at for taking all of your possessions with you to said country. If you can’t find any logic in that last sentence, it’s because there is no logic in that situation and yet it actually happened.
But in the 2 days I’ve spent in this place, I have had other learning moments that I am arbitrarily deciding outweigh any of that. In no particular order, here are some interesting things I have learned in my first 2 days in Corvallis, Oregon:
  1. There is wine in the grocery store here. I actually already knew this, but was pleasantly reminded when I rounded the produce aisle and came face first with my favourite Pinot Gris (Oregon’s A-Z Wineworks, in case you were wondering). How magical is it that wine can peacefully co-exist with all the other grocery items?
  1. I didn’t know the expression ‘sleepy college town’ was an actual thing until this morning, when I left to find Einstein Bros Bagels. It was like the city was taking a proverbial yawn just as the sun came up. I, too, felt sleepy, until I was struck by dozens of different bagel flavours and immediately felt more alive. The presence of pumpkin bagels will do that to a person.
  1. Speaking of Bros – Dutch Bros is the local coffee place and it is life. They don’t serve actual coffee, but instead make sugary, milky beverages that are coffee-flavoured. They are delicious. They probably have 1000 g of sugar. They will likely fuel my entire degree.
  1. One-way streets are VERY DIFFICULT. I am emphasize this because my 3 minute drive from the grocery store turned into a 20 minute drive, on account of having a very minimal sense of direction and only being able to turn left at every block. I hope everyone saw my BC license plates and felt a small amount of sympathy for the new girl who kept turning into the wrong lane. (Related: the traffic lights are very tiny! Or are they very big in Vancouver? We will never know.)
  1. Not directly related to Corvallis, but: I could literally not do any of this move without my parents. If they hadn’t helped me, I would be floundering in bubble wrap and boxes right now. They (along with Sam) helped me build 8 pieces of IKEA furniture (not to mention spent an entire day in IKEA while I meticulously poured over lamps and dining chairs). They turned every weird situation into a fun adventure (read: my mom in the passenger seat as I circled around one-way streets for 20 minutes), and decided it was essential that I have a miniature palm plant so that my new apartment felt like home. If I had to sum up this one thought with an emoji, it would be the heart-eyes emoji.
And this was just TWO DAYS! I’m stoked to learn a whole lot more over the new two years, and can’t wait to share it with you. As a parting gift for this first blog post, here is a photo of me in my new habitat:
afterlight

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