Culture Shock Can Be Good

(A picture of the house in daylight)

(down our street)

Well, something I might have left out of the last post is that after a very long drive, and having seen glimpses of our new hometown (for now), we got back to the Navy Lodge and I let out a long cry. Josh and I have been through a lot of changes in the last 6 months (he finished school, we got married, we moved to Baltimore, I finished school, I've been looking for a job and studying for my exam, and now we've moved again)- strangely though, I haven't felt that affected by all of those changes, but the culture shock of Pensacola did me in I guess!

It seems a good cry was all I needed though and now we are loving where we live. I suppose I just needed to get my bearings and feel like I had a small idea of where things were located.

Although we have experienced quite a culture shock, thanks to my wonderful husband, we are taking it like he took his Plebe summer/boot camp (as if it were summer camp!)

Our eyes are in the infancy stage of opening to a whole new world- that isn't necessarily bad, just different.

Josh and I went to a Waffle House (they are hard to avoid) and took a picture for Mom Gropp (she's not a fan of the food). Everyone in the restaurant (including some customers) said hello to us several times. We then sat down and had a pretty tasty breakfast sandwich and didn't say a word while we ate so we could listen to the gossip- haha. The big gossip on the street at this Waffle House was that the manager decided to stop carrying Splenda packets because they were too expensive! Now the customers go to the Walmart and bring their own in. I mean, really, why carry Splenda if you won't lose customers?!

(at Waffle House)

Until last night we hadn't had a home-cooked meal because, well, nothing was unpacked and we had no food! Although we are thrilled to begin cooking again (last night was our first dinner here), we've had some interesting choices in meals. My favorite has been going to Sonic. It's fast food (which is the only kind of food you can get when you eat out for the most part), but it's a "drive in". Josh and I showed up and thought the drive in signs were just for fun so we walked to the front door of the place and they looked at us as if we were aliens and said to go back to our car to order and that they would bring our food to us. We thought that was pretty cool in and of itself, but it only got better when our "waitress" (for a lack of better words) delivered our food on rollerskates!!!! It was pretty awesome.

One last story is that we very quickly discovered yesterday not to go to the grocery store/commissary on payday (A friend warned me of this but I guess I didn't really realize it would happen quite like this).

As Josh and I pulled up to the gate to go to the Commissary (Navy grocery store), there was a 30 car line that went out into the highway were were trying to come off of. My friend wasn't kidding! It seemed like the world was about to end and everyone in town was going to stock up so that they could hide in some shelter. I really shouldn't make light of this, as apparently it is a big problem in the Navy (people spending too much money and then living paycheck to paycheck), but it was certainly an eye opener to Josh and I.

We are really having a blast living in a house and being quite removed from city life. Josh had fun out in the driveway washing his wheels and I am having a lot of fun unpacking and decorating the house. We are so thankful for the little things this homeowner put into the house to make it very easy to live in without having to buy lots of extras (e.g. closet organizers for storage, shelves in the garage, a bike rack in the garage, hooks and bars and hangers everywhere, etc etc.) We are also really enjoying not having white walls- it's so warm and cozy.

(Josh cleaning car wheels at sunset)




Mess in guest bedroom


(mess in kitchen- movers have to unpack you if you want them to, but they just place everything on the nearest counter or floor...we still asked them to because we knew dealing with all of those boxes and the packing paper could be a nightmare)

We are really blessed and pray that even when valleys come we would still sing "blessed by the name of the Lord".


(a picture of Perdido Key- the beach area about 10 minutes from our house- Visitors?? Anyone? hehe)

Thanks for sharing in our adventures!

Florida-bama

We're here! After about 22 hours and 1,000 miles of driving in tandem we arrived in our new "hometown" of Pensacola, FL. We were welcomed to the Sunshine state in the pouring rain...we'll talk about that some more later...

(at a rest area in NC at 3 am...Josh wondering why pulling my camera out to take a picture is on my mind)


(Giving my neck a rub with the "theracane" before we continue driving...boy was I tense!)

I presented my final research presentation on Monday night and afterwards we began driving south. We originally intended stopping somewhere to sleep but drove more or less "straight through" in tandem with stops for gas, food, and rest...I suppose it was all the adrenaline from finishing my Master's degree- FINALLY!

Tired and weary we arrived to the Navy Lodge on base and settled in Tuesday night. This morning we went to see the first rental home on our list and shortly thereafter we were surrounded by torrential rain and flooding (you know it's bad when an area that tends to get a lot of rain stops the radio station you are listening to in order to discuss evacuation routes!) Well, we are sad to say the rain was not in our favor and what seemed like a "driveway" into a parking lot (we were trying to turn around) was actually a very large curb and drain. Needless to say, 0.5 seconds later we had 2 flat tires and only one spare. I think I kept imagining it would go away, so when Josh asked me to call a cab company I sat there, thought about it awhile (while he was putting on one spare in the pouring rain) and then decided to call Dad Gropp...hmmm....denial??

...Several hours later, after encountering many nice people, spending some money, and ultimately doing what Josh asked me to do in the first place (calling a cab to get the other car)- we were back in working order.

While Josh was getting the tires replaced I went to look at the other houses on our list to try to expedite the process and we ultimately decided on the first house we looked at. We are so thrilled and blessed by the timing of everything relating to our move. The movers in Baltimore packed us up Friday and here we are with a house to rent and movers coming tomorrow to deliver our boxes! We are really looking forward to eating some home-cooked meals again and settling in.

Below are some pictures from our adventure so far...there is so much yet to explore...hopefully some of that exploring can happen without the rain soon!


(The view from our Navy Lodge hotel room on base)

Our new home:

(outside in the dark- will get pictures of backyard some other time)

(we had a lot of "thinking" to do during all of that driving...one thing that occurred to me during the drive is that we have a blue car and a gold car...people in the navy might think we're Navy Blue and Gold fanatics...we really didn't do this on purpose but it gave me a good laugh on the car ride...)


(living room when you walk in the front door- bedrooms/bathrooms to the left once in house. Kitchen to the right)


("dining room"/area for kitchen table)


(Kitchen- fake granite)

(kitchen with pass through to dining room- door here goes to garage)


(garage with lots of shelving and washer/dryer)

(garage-last tenants left a t.v.)


(Hallway to bathroom and three small bedrooms)

(Master bathroom)

(lots of great closet space)

(2nd bathroom)

...well, if you've made it this far I'm impressed!

Tomorrow Josh will "check in" and we should be doing plenty of unpacking. Monday I have my first interview.

Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers.

Our 1st camping trip

Josh and I have always wanted to go on a camping trip together once we were married- what we didn't know is that our first camping trip would be in our apartment!

Some may argue that this is not true camping, but it sure feels like it.

Friday morning at 10 am three movers came to pack and box up our stuff. They looked at me like I was crazy that we only had 3500 pounds worth of stuff (they ask you to estimate your shipment weight so they can estimate how long it will take to pack and ship)....well, at the end of the day we ended up having about that weight but they were not too happy about all the "little" things they had to individually wrap. I found it amusing the three things they decided to comment on while packing our belongings (my affinity for turtles, Josh's affinity for golf, and the amount of stuff we managed to fit in our small kitchen).

Josh was able to come home from work for the beginning of the packing and he tried to help them bring packing paper from the elevator and got scolded. I had to sit and supervise the movers all day but I wasn't allowed to touch a thing....pretty boring if I do say so (but somehow I felt as tired at the end of the day as I imagine I might have if I had packed everything up myself).

Well, enough of the boring details. We are very blessed that we did not have to move our belongings ourselves and we hope that it all arrives in one piece when we get to FL. All of our stuff will have to go into storage (as it will arrive before us and we don't have a place lined up to live yet).

We are hoping to have our shipment brought to our new place before the weekend (13th) so that we won't need to stay in a hotel through the weekend.


(Pre-packing madness)

(stuff we set aside to take in our cars)


(lots and lots of boxes...they moved our clothes in boxed wardrobes on hangers...I was fascinated!)


(all of the boxes stacked behind the couch were books...they called before coming to ask if we had a lot of books-I replied no thinking surely most other people had more books than we did...apparently we were wrong...they told me it was a lot of books and I replied, "a lot' is kind of a relative term you know...")


(our couch about to be shrink wrapped- they packed it better than it was packed when we had the couches delivered!)


(supervising with my feet up on the couch, a book in my lap and chips...I felt so guilty I couldn't really read).

(Almost everything packed..I was getting tired...I can only imagine the movers who do this 5 days a week!)

(sure looks like a mess!)

(Josh came home to find the TV and golf clubs still not packed...he got to say his last good-byes before they got wrapped up)



As for our bright idea to stay in our apartment with no stuff rather than staying in a hotel on the Navy...it has been interesting to say the least....much like a camping trip. After the movers left (at 7pm- after 9 hours of packing) we realized that we only had lights in our kitchen and bathroom....whoops! We have been having fun though....

sharing a cereal bowl...going to dunkin donuts...

sleeping on an air mattress



doing somersaults...



looking at the eclectic things we will be moving in the cars ourselves (the moving company can't move liquids that are opened, lightbulbs, batteries, chemicals, ammo, and maybe some other things too)...

Well, we leave tomorrow for Philadelphia so that I can't present my Master's research project and then we will be on our way!

Hope this finds you all well. Looking forward to seeing many of you for the holidays!