over-whelming beauty.

I have made it to Philly y’all!  900 miles later and I am officially a permanent resident above the Mason Dixon Line?  How ‘bout that?!  And believe me, everyone knows country has come to town.

Gotta love a good road trip.  Drove with Dad and sang
Beatles songs the whole way!  All you need is love, yah know?!

I mean, I live in Pennsylvania.  And this is actually called the
Mason Dixon Bridge.  Fun fact.

You know, when the 16 hours in the car look like this,
a girl just can't complain.

Meet Lucy Baird.  Sometimes we like to call her Lucinda though.  It really just depends what mood you are in.  Roommate, classmate, and southern belle soul mate.  She is from the Mississippi Delta, and just your typical farmers daughter.  Lucy graduated 2011 from Mississippi State in Special Education and taught school this past year back home in the Delta.  She takes care of me really.  And I don’t know what I would be doing if it wasn’t for Wuucy.  I think we will make it just fine up here for the next couple of years.  Needless to say and I know you are all thinking it…I love Lucy!!!

Rooms.  Little Lucinda.

Lucy is rather patriotic at times.  So spirited!

When Mom, Dad and I pulled up to Hill House Apartments last Wednesday, I don’t know if there has ever been a time where I felt more overwhelmed.  I had my clothes and an empty apartment.  Mom and I just kept looking at each other like one of us would suddenly have all the answers.  But slowly and surely it all stared to come together and I don’t think we could have picked a more agreeable and easy family than the Bairds.  So.  Cheers to our humble abode.  I think it is coming together quite nicely. 

Boxes, boxes, boxes, and boxes.
At least they held new furniture!  Gotta love IKEA!

Philadelphia--the City of Brotherly Love.  In all honesty I have found that coined phrase to ring quite true so far. (Haha get it…ring…like a bell…the Liberty Bell?!? Hah)   If they would just tone down their voices and not yell at each other all the time, I think I could get used to the Yankee accent. 

Woop woop!  First train ride into the city.  What a beaut!

Just being touristy at Independence Hall

Carriage ride downtown Philly

My first real Philly cheese steak

There are a few things this city offers that I will have to adjust to.  I say adjust because I hope to never actually get used to coin laundry, no rights on red, ‘yous guys’, Obama stickers EVERYWHERE, and parallel parking.  I know that last one made some of you laugh.  Yep, still really bad at it.  We also have heat lamps in our bathrooms.  Why you ask?  Well, maybe when we will get a blizzard, we can at least huddle in the bathroom for warmth.  I don’t really know.  I hear it gets cold.  I’ll have to adjust to the funny looks I get when a yes mame, or no mame slips out.  Apparently it is slight;y offensive.  Had I grown up here, my rear end would have been spared quite a few spankings.  And the second the word, y’all reaches the end of my lips, I am asked where I am from.  I am always so proud to tell them Alabama.  And bless your heart if you ask me where I went to school because I could talk about Auburn for days. 

It only felt appropriate.  Subtle, but keepin' it real.

But there are many things here I have already grown to love.  The first one being my new Philly friend, Bert the doorman.  Bert is Indian and smells strongly of curry.  So much so that you can smell it out outside before you even reach the door.  Oddly enough, it kind of smells like home now.  And although I do not think the feelings are mutual, I love Evon.  Evon is an older woman who also works the door sometimes.  She wears a very perfectly styled African American wig and when you walk in the door, you don’t get a hello, or even a nod.  Rather you get this really slow, elegant, yet intense blink.  She is about to get hit with some real Alabama/ Mississippi girl charm.  Evon gunna be smiling AND waving by the time we leave.  She may even have some weird, pent up emotion up in there like a tear.  Mark my words, we will break her.  I like little projects like that any way.  Some other things that have already started to define my life here are things like living in a high rise apartment where I look out over the Chestnut Hills west train line.  The town has sidewalks and cobble stone streets.  I have even biked to the organic grocery store.  As of lately, Garmin is my best friend.  She has even earned herself a name- Barbara.  And when she is frustrating me…Barb for short.  Bless her.  Frustration is an emotion I have been experiencing a lot lately on the streets.

Saved on my phone.  Big city livin!

My home sweet home.  

So far, Bert has been my walking Philly For Dummies book.  He is full of tips and things to be aware of…or just notice.  Train schedules and bus stops I am told to become well acquainted with.  Public transportation is new.  The closest thing I have ever had to public transportation was Mrs. Cunnngham’s carpool in 8^th grade.  How many kids in the Altadena area can you fit in one Suburban?    The list goes on.  Locals think Philly cheese steaks are overrated.  I don't really have a choice in being a Philly baseball fan.  Parts of downtown smell funny…but give yourself about 10 miles out and you have never breathed in fresher air.  It fills you up practically.  When the sun sets, it turns the tips of the trees a color orange that makes you want to grab your comfy mug and curl up with a good mood book.  It is the gentle warning of the day's end.  It’s weird living in the big girl world.  I am no longer surrounded by only people my age.  The world does not consistently revolve around 18-22 year olds.  My neighbors wear suspenders and use walkers.  Buicks fill the parking garage and the apartment library smells of old men, newspapers, and cigars.  At night, the workout room is full of med students, young married couples after work, and teenagers after school.  There are kid toys in the lobby right next to and elderly person’s oxygen tank.  The real work people.  I’m in it.  3rd floor room 312 kind of in it.

My walls are still bare in the apartment and are begging to be dressed.  But the inside of my wallet is hungry and I think I should fill that first.  I don’t mind.  I like just being here.  Maybe it is because I have no friends to impress, or maybe I just don’t care anymore if that should impress them.  I like just enjoying being somewhere for the first time.  Things will fall into place exactly where they need to be placed, and it usually happens with out me stressing about it.  I think that is a part of my character that was refined this summer in Italy.  And I think part of that is just growing up. 

I do miss home.  I miss more the ones that make up my home.  It is not the home sick kind of missing, but rather the gratefulness I feel when I think about home and the people who are cheering me on.  The more I leave home, the more I begin to appreciate having grown up in an entire community I can call home.  Home is not just defined by the walls of your house, but really by the ones who have come into your life and helped shape you to be who ever that may be.  I think that is rare...or so I have seen the more places and people I meet.  And I still stand very grateful.  I have loved taking my home with me here.  I love being able to come to a city like Philadelphia- out of my comforts, and see how my home has shaped me.  My home will never be in Philadelphia, but this is where my life is right now and because I have a home, I will be successful.

I am trying to take it slow.  Those that know me know this should be an interesting challenge.  When I lived in Nashville for a summer, I promised my self I would do one new thing a day.  This kept me meeting people, going places, and experiencing new things.  Some things were dumb like driving to East Nashville to go to the legendary hot dog stand.  I don’t plan on being able to do that in my time here in Philly as consistently as in Nashville.  But I want to keep going, meeting people, and experiencing new things.  Today, Lucy and I took our bikes down to Chestnut Hills trail and rode about 6 miles following the river lines with stone walls, vines and passing the occasional person on horseback.  It was so fun to get out and do something and it isn’t even two miles from my apartment.

So outdoorsy. 

...and so athletic.  

This morning I officially registered for graduate school classes.  Whoa.  15 hours of classes to be exact.  Over-whelmed, yes.  Scared? Out of my mind.  But you know, a funny thing is happening.  I have not had the 'flight or fright' reaction to it all yet.  I have a bet with myself.  That I can do this.

All day Tuesday we were in new student orientation.  We got to Westminster at 8:30 am for registration, breakfast and fellowship.  Yes.  Fellowship is a nice way of telling us they will be sticking us in a room with a whole bunch of people we don’t know yet with coffee in one hand and a weird breakfast finger food plate in the other hand making it really difficult to stand, drink, and eat all at the same time while also trying to smile and act like you don’t feel like you are standing in the room completely naked.  Fellowship. 

But all in all the day was good.  All except for the part in the day where my throat started to close up when the reality hit about the next two years of my life.  Well, life is bit of an exaggeration, because I really don’t think I will be having much of one.  :)  I just ordered 21 books for my classes this SEMESTER.  That is a 2 and a 1 people.  That is a small library.

I dont know if you can see...but this was our entrance Bible exam.
Impossible.

They did not leave us hanging in this sad realization though.  Westminster is tough but not cruel.  Over-whelmed.  That is the word they left us with.  But, strangely enough I am excited about it.  During our orientation we were in fact encouraged to be overwhelmed.  You see if we just stay, ‘whelmed’, then we stay in the dangerous place of thinking we can do this all ourselves.  When we are brought to the breaking point, on our knees, face down kind of overwhelmed, this is where we meet Jesus and he does some pretty cool things.  So I am excited.  I have no doubt I am going to be ripped to shreds wondering why I am paying money to feel this way, but how can someone come out of all of that stormy fire not refined?  You can’t.  And I think that is precisely the point.