first real day in Shenandoah

I woke up this morning at what I think was 7something to the sun shining in my room (I managed to not close the blinds last night, but that's not really an issue), but that was the time on my iPod. Then I woke up again later to Jim knocking on my door. I managed to struggle out a "mmyeah?" and he just said he wanted me to not sleep the day away considering we're going to this farmer's thing at dark-thirty in the morning tomorrow because farmers are insane and sleep only when it's dark outside. I looked at my iPod. 10. Meh, not too bad. Then looked at my phone: noon. Oh crap, time change.

Oh yeah, you know how in the South everyone drinks sweet tea, and in Germany it's beer? Well, I don't know about the midwest, but at this house, they drink coffee. The kitchen sink leaks out the pipes, and well, it takes too much effort to empty buckets, so why not just brew coffee all the time? Seems ideal to me. Their normal coffee pot broke awhile back, so Jim perfected the art of cold-brew coffee. Which is where you stick the grounds in a pitcher of water and just leave it there for hours and then strain the beautifully strong drink into canning jars for your enjoyment. So taking room temperature coffee, 2% milk (yes! they love real food here!!! we must be related or something...), and some form of artificial sweetner (that will probably melt my brain at the rate of how much coffee I've been having), I can't really say that I mind. Also? My typing speed is up by like 5000x because of all the caffeine I've consumed without real food. heh... Lunch consisted of beautifully bbq'd pork loins and grapes. And more coffee, of course.

Jan and I are going to go out on our bikes soonish to go look around town. I would like to go over to the Walmart at some point to get some things like mosquito repellant (got the first hit last night).

It's actually not as humid as I was expecting. Perhaps this is because I'm used to Mississippi, and it's crazy humid down there. The weather has actually been fairly pleasant so far. Warm, yes, humid, a bit, but with a gentle breeze. I will admit that the sunlight is more intense here than it is in Oregon. This might be because of the added moisture content constantly in the air making it like a greenhouse, or just the fact that we are farther south in the world and the angle of the sun is more direct than that in Oregon.

Lacking a surge-protector as of now, I've decided to only leave things plugged in while I'm awake and home. I'm super not into power surges on my electronics (because of the extreme thunderstorms they get in the area). Especially my computer or speaker system. Which, btw, is BEYOND awesome. I love it. I listened to some music last night, and right now I have some Nora Jones gently playing in the background. Also, because there are two canines and two felines roaming about (especially the little criminal), I've decided to mostly keep my stuff together and up high if at all possible. Just so that there is no question about my stuff getting confiscated or tasted.

I showered, which was nice to finally do. I have some rather intimidating looking blood-blisters from carrying around my black duffle all of yesterday. My back is incredibly sore. The bed is comfortable, so it's obviously not that. I think it was just all the packing and lifting and moving I've been doing for the last week. Plus sitting in an airplane all day is never the best on your mental sanity or your body. Plus, my duffle weighed like 30lbs and my violin is around 20 with all the stuff I have in the case right now (t-shirts for padding and books because they wouldn't fit anywhere else).

You know you're in the Midwest when grandma drives a big fancy pick-up truck, kids drive beaters and blast country (often trucks), everyone walks everywhere or rides coaster bikes, giant semi's loaded with corn are headed to the ethanol plant, bugs are weird and everywhere, and no one locks anything -- ever. It's quite the culture difference. I guess it's a good thing that I planned on it being different and readied myself for a change.

One could say like it's almost a midwest version of the Peace Corps. Kinda in a home-stay way. Good thing I'm not offended by dogs, insects, or dirt. :)