For as long as I can remember, I have always lived in the city. I am your typical #citygirl. Because of this, my experiences have been limited to the urban life – in other words, I live and breathe buildings and 24/7 access to everything and anything. When I came to F&M, I found myself in a completely new environment: everything closed at 9:00 p.m. and life moved very slowly in comparison to the city. “So this is what the suburbs is like.” I have always been fascinated by the idea of living in a small town or even in the countryside. As a child living in an urban neighborhood, television was my sanctuary. Seeing all of the white picket fence houses and southern hospitality charm that were constantly depicted in the movies sparked my curiosity. I made it a life goal to explore and see what life outside of the city would be like. Therefore, when I was given the opportunity to go hiking for one of my classes, I was excited to see what nature had to offer. I have never been much of an outdoors kind of girl, but there is always a first time for everything. I didn’t exactly know what I had expected prior to the field trip, but if I had learned one thing from this experience, it would be this: a city girl like me may not always fit in with the beautiful mother nature.
A city girl’s stages of hiking: Take One –
1. After a stressful day of classes and being on campus for months, I was excited to be away for a couple of hours. It’s always nice to be in a new change of scenery. #roadtrip!
2. Less than an hour later and we have finally arrived! Breathing in fresh air is definitely nice – oh look, there’s a river!
3. 15 minutes later and I just saw a bug. THEY WILL NEVER BE MY FAVORITE. #icry
4. Realizing there’s no service #t-mobileproblems
5. Update: we are finally starting to climb and I am realizing that there is going to be a lot more climbing than I had anticipated
6. When the professor says “who wants to go to the other side through the cave?” and everyone goes for it but you really don’t want to
INSIDE:
OUTSIDE:
7. Today I learned that conforming to social pressures has its consequences. As I hiked through the cave, I almost slipped and touched moss. Let me just say that this was the first encounter between me and the Moss Family.
8. After climbing the tallest hill, we were instructed to climb back down. Can I just stay up here? I’ll call the helicopter.
9. And thus ends my journey. We are finally heading back to campus! #hallelujah
*All gifs are from giphy.com.