Life as a temporary Hoosier...

Greetings friends and family – so another week has passed here in Northern Indiana – and we are slowly but surely making ourselves at home. With every relocation comes a host of potential pros and cons to the situation – or perhaps it is better psychologically to consider this a list of the ‘differences’ –

Pros:
No traffic - Maximum driving distance to anywhere is 10 mins in traffic
$1 movie theaters
Everything is cheaper
We can have corn whenever we want
Cheap petrol/gas

Cons:
It’s Indiana
You can’t buy alcohol on a Sunday – an atrocity and nearly reason enough to leave the state all together –
We can have corn whenever we want
Stating you have just moved to Indiana – and being constantly asked ‘Why?’
No In’n’Out – but there is a Steak’n’Shake – which just has my taste-buds rearing to go!
It’s Indiana

The past week also included my international orientation at ND – a morning full of questions, confused foreigners, and a handy list of 101 ways to get kicked out of the USA. With the majority of my immigration responsibilities now complete, I am free to enjoy all the benefits that American society has to offer…aww crap…we live in Indiana.

We also had our first Indiana ‘kegger’ – a party put on by one of the older students in my department. It turned out to be a great night, with plenty of drinks and the comforting thought that students who had lived here for nearly four years were still relatively normal. We also made our way to Lake Michigan, a thoroughly confusing site for poor Jennifer, who was not expecting to see a beach for a long long time. It was a beautiful day and the perfect way to farewell the lake before it freezes over next week…

So with preparations for school under way – and classes beginning this week – I am officially a first year again. Tomorrow we are off to school…with our sack lunches, our hair combed and sporting our favorite pair of underwear (for that extra bit of confidence) we are ready to go!

Pictured: It had to be done – a cornfield – I would like to say we had to drive a long way to take this picture…but that would be lying…this particularly attractive cornfield is all of 2 minutes away from our ‘downtown’ apartment.

And above – Lake Michigan – as close to a beach as Jennifer will be getting for awhile.