Getting Settled In

For the last week or so I've struggled relentlessly with my advisor (Christy you rock!) and my family, in an attempt to get registered for classes and settle into my dorm.  Difficult is an understatement when describing the moving process.  The drive took nearly 11 hours and everything in Florida is so different.  I went from living in a townhouse with a walk in closet to a dorm with two roommates but I also upgraded to the Miami lifestyle and my roommates are awesome (I love you guys already!).  Of course I miss my family and friends and the comfort of Darla Moore and just Columbia in general.  I've finally started learning the area a little bit (I can find Walmart, Target, and a few fast food places) and I'm so happy to say southern hospitality doesn't only exist in South Carolina.  Even when I'm faced with people I can't communicate with (language barriers suck!) they always smile and wave and point which is nice.

So many things have blown my mind here! It's more common to find someone who speaks no English at all then it is to find someone like me who only speaks English fluently.  Although I am still in the USA I've learned to assume every person I see is Hispanic because people are almost never white or black which is what you usually encounter in South Carolina.  When you call places (restaurants, tourist attractions, offices) they almost always answer with a Spanish greeting instead of English because people just don't speak English here. I considered getting a job but a lot of places request bilingual applicants because the area around the school is filled with Spanish native speakers who don't typically use English.  Needless to say I've already upped my daily Spanish lessons on Duolingo and since both of my roommates are from Argentina I should be learning Spanish pretty quickly.

Differences I've noticed in Miami and Columbia? In our grocery stores the delis sell hot wings and wedge fries.  Here they sell pork and plantains. McDonald's here doesn't sell strawberry sundaes but they sell mozzarella cheese sticks and apple empanadas.  There's a Cuban store or restuarant on almost every corner (Cuban food is fantastic by the way OMG) and oddly enough late night restaurants in Columbia are places like Beezers and Fast Eddies, here they have 24 hour Cuban/Latin American restaurants!  I've frequented the toll roads in Greenville where you stop and pay.  Here they have toll roads on nearly every interstate and you don't stop and pay, they take a picture of your license plate and send you a bill in the mail.  Hopefully I'll learn back roads soon because the tolls are pretty expensive!  Also football season is nowhere near as appreciated at FIU as it is at USC :( But I can understand why people are more inclined to travel to South Beach for the weekend than they are to tailgate and go to the bars to celebrate a win.  I miss tailgating already but I think South Beach with the blue water and oceanfront hookah bars, restaurants, and shops will be more than enough to keep me company over the next few months :)

Here's a few pictures from the South Beach tour I went on.  The city is so beautiful and the people truly are one of a kind.  If I didn't know any better I'd say I wasn't in America anymore.  Miami truly feels like a foreign land and I'm loving every minute of it.