New Beginnings

Well I've officially been in North Carolina for an entire week now. And what a week it’s been. Unfortunately not the best impression on me thus far. Mom and I started our journey east on Thursday, which happened to be the same day as the Midwest's first snowstorm. Driving my little Malibu and mom in her Highlander jammed packed with as much as possible, through snowstorms and black ice, for 9 straight hours to our hotel in Louisville, Kentucky was definitely not an ideal start to my newest life chapter. After eating at an amazing, and fairly authentic Mexican restaurant and a much too short night of relaxing, we were on the road again. Yet again we ran into snow, but this time it was a beautiful covering over the amazing landscape of Kentucky, parts of Tennessee and finally through the Smokies and on into North Carolina. What a relief to finally be in the right state and out of snow!

Two more hours and mom and I finally made it to Charlotte, complete with crazy drivers and wide diversity. To my surprise, the apartment I will be calling home for at least the next eight months is located in a high-end neighborhood. The place itself, we've come to learn, not so much. On arrival we signed the lease and what we intended to be a quick look over before finally grabbing something to eat turned into a 20 minute examination of what was wrong with the place. Carpet still wet, heater not kicking on, crappy paint job, and my favorite, dead bugs in the kitchen cabinets. Over the next few days mom and I frequently visited the leasing office to fix my random useless outlets, the bathroom fan (which apparently never even had a fan in it), hole in the wall (formed by mom barely touching a crack, complete with a hollow space where some mysterious animal is sharing the wall with me) and a broken smoke alarm. After two days of scrubbing, furniture shopping (we have discovered Ikea's wonderful low budget solution- including their in-store dining area), and decorating, this apartment finally feels like home. 

My new roommate, Peter