[美國] New Girl in Austin

Hello Texas! Hello Austin!

        It has been over a week since I first arrived in Austin. The journey to Austin was exhausting. It was a 12 hour flight to LA and another 12 hour wait in the airport and finally a 3 hour flight from LA to Austin. It was lucky that my friend and I got students from Taiwanese student association to pick us up at the airport and helped us through the procedures of signing the contract with the leasing guy. We live in Century Plaza, which is on Red River St. It has a bus stop right in front of the building, and it takes about 10 minutes bus ride to go to school. The supermarket, HEB, is just across the road. Our apartment is quite spacious in terms of Asians, but I guess the size is quite usual to Americans, especially Texans.  Even though it seems quite convenient to live here, but it is still quite difficult to get around places without a car. Luckily we found someone to drive us to Target, a wholesale just like Walmart. At Target we bought some chairs and bookcases, but we didn't notice that it would be a hassle to assemble them. We were at first shocked to see pieces of the furniture and didn't know what to do. I haven't used a hammer before in my life! We were grateful that a Taiwanese guy doing his Phd here lent us his tool box and we started to assemble the furniture by reading the manual. We couldn't believe that we made it when we finally sat on our office chairs right by our bookcases.

         The temperature here really drives people crazy. When I first arrived, I didn't even want to walk outdoors in the daytime especially in the afternoon. It is just like a desert and I start to understand what the lizards and other animals that hide themselves in the sand feel like. Many Asian women are especially worried about getting their skin dark since nobody here walks with an umbrella under the sun. Now I am starting to get used to the heat, and I feel blessed that the people here are as warm as the temperature. They greet you with a smile even you are a total stranger to them.

        Western food such as hamburgers, pizza and steak is the symbol of high class in Taiwan since you can get them only in restaurants. Sadly they are the only food you can find here. Well in Texas there are some Mexican food. Still the options are limited, and Asian food are only seen in restaurants which are pricey. Therefore, I started to cook again after leaving Sweden. Having been practicing my cooking skills in Sweden, I have improved a lot. It is now easy for me to make three dishes and a soup.

Roasted Chicken

Vegetables fried with butter and milk

Mushroom with shredded pork

        Almost every apartment here in Texas has a pool. At night, the temperature is nice for swimming. I went to the pool the other day and it was much more fun than I expected. There are deeper parts in the pool where we swam and shallow parts for people to sit and have a party!

        Still settling down and trying to get used to everything here! Starting school in a few days and I am quite nervous about it! I definitely hope everything will go well.