First Day

Being here is pretty much one giant culture shock right now.

I packed up my life as it is into two large suitcases, a small bag, and a backpack.
I got on my plane from Sacramento at about noon and made it to my dorm (Weiss college) at Rice by about 7.

First impression of Houston: holy crap it's hot but so pretty and green
It's a big city, but it was really empty while we were driving through it.
The college itself is gorgeous; all the buildings are made of brick and pretty old. There's lots of random fields throughout the campus, which is a change from having everything laid out in a circle.

Once I got in I hung out with my roommate, Anita, and the other guy from our program, Andre. We were about to tour the dorm area when we ran into Jess and Nelson, who were about to get food so we tagged along. Jess is from texas originally and drove this beautiful big Ford F-150 truck.. We went to Chick-fil-a so it was a pretty "texan" experience if you can call it that, haha.

We then tried to go to "the biggest pool party ever" which involved waiting in line outside of a building for about an hour and a half... but it was so packed with people that we couldn't get in.
Oh, and I was pretty much the only white girl in the entire vicinity.
CULTURE SHOCK.

I love it so far, I just feel kind of lost.
I have yet to explore everything, so I only really know where my dorm is and where my lab is.... And I'm still on Cali time.


To all my cali friends: I miss you guys SO much.
I've been here a day and I'm already homesick for Cali. I know ten weeks will fly by and I'm going to have some amazing times here, but I miss heat without the humidity!

I'm off to spend the rest of my day reading scientific papers and exploring the campus some more...