"You Must Have SUCH Culture Shock!"

Whenever someone from MT or ND hears I am from California, 99% of the time their reaction is "Wow, you must have such culture shock!"  I then reply with "No, I come from a very rural area" or another line is "Actually, where I used to live I was an hour from Walmart" and no one believes me. (or that I lived in a town with 125,000 head of stinky smelly feedlot cattle!)  Most people who live here who have been to CA have only been to areas like San Francisco, LA, San Diego- the big cities.  If I say I am in Central CA, they say "so close to San Francisco?"  and I say, "no, 3 hours south."  They then say "so LA?"  And I say "No, 3 hours north" and their next question is "Sacramento?"  Not many realize how big CA really is and think it is one giant connected metropolis.  It's funny because MT and ND are such large states as well and they too take a whole day to travel across.

I have yet to get real homesick, and I haven't experienced any "culture shock".  Yes the winter was cold, and I was not particularly used to having snow on my front porch, but I HAVE been in snow before, and I DO know what cold is.  No one believes pipes freeze in Paso and that our town really does get bone chilling cold.  Winter was not too harsh, I survived and am not afraid to stick around for many many more.  The one thing I have missed though is the ability to hop in my car and just take a drive to the beach at any given moment.  There is just something so peaceful about the ocean, and I spent a lot of time there in the year and a half before I moved out here.  Oh how I would LOVE a bread bowl full of Splash! clam chowder, topped with seafood topping.  You better believe you will see a picture of that coming soon, I missed it when I was home for Christmas. 

 

The lights of Monterey Bay

 

My dad took me out flying over Christmas Break.  Can you see Morro Rock?

  

Sea Lions at Breakwater Cove in Monterey

 

Cayucos Pier

A seal on the jetty in Morro Bay.  No zoom was used, I was that close.  I wanted so bad to reach out and touch him.