Our First Week in Durham

Well after a long 3 days of driving and 7 states later we have finally arrived in North Carolina! Although its just 2000 miles away from home it kind of feels like a new country! For instance we went to fill up our gas tank and the pump didn't stop automatically when the tank was full so gas just came spewing out of the car, Brian smelled like pure gasoline all afternoon. We went to the grocery store and we noticed some of our west coast brands had new names... the ice cream had this label



instead of this one





However, it's gorgeous here (HOT and HUMID) but gorgeous!

Our first few days getting around town were definitely interesting, we couldn't tell if we were in the middle of nowhere or on a major highway... it turns out they look exactly the same.



The people here are very friendly and outgoing, we've already noticed people don't worry about offending each other they just say what they're thinking, which is often quite comical. Yesterday we were at the gas station (shortly after the aforementioned freak gasoline spewing incident) and there was a woman trying to pull around into a spot but she couldn't remember which side of her car the tank was on. She pulled around 3 different times but still couldn't decide if she was on the right side of the pump. The woman pulling into the pump behind her leaned out of her window and shouted "Girl, WHAT are you doin'?" The other woman shouted back "Well, I'm just gettin' ALL turned around", then a third woman at another pump shouted to both of them "uh huh, you know that's right". All three of them started laughing, and I had to smile a little too, even though they were only pointing out the obvious, I had to wonder if a northerner or a westerner would have been able to take the light-hearted teasing quite the same way.