Being born and raised in Florida, from Miami to Tampa, I was comfortable in my surroundings and I didn’t want to move. I was very hesitant, about moving halfway across the country, but I would never have guessed how great Texas would be, despite many things are different. Though I’ve only been here for a month and haven’t experienced everything just yet, but it seems to be going well.
One big difference here are the schools. Bryan High and Tampa Bay Tech(my former school in Florida) are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. One major difference being lunch. In Florida, they had planned lunches. We could only choose our fruit and drink and our main courses consisted of cheeseburgers and fries or ham and gross mashed potatoes. It was terrible. My expectations for Texas school lunches weren’t too high, considering what I experienced in Florida, but when I took a bite of the nachos on my first day, I was in love with the food. It was fantastic! Everything else regarding school is almost the same; every teacher gives homework, every class gives notes, 5-minute passing to get to your class. Just the lunch though is amazing here.
Another difference, are the people, they are just so nice. Everyone holds the door for you. In Tampa, people just slam the door in your face, like the rude little peasants they are. In my new neighborhood, if you drive by someone standing in their yard, they always wave and smile to you. People in Tampa, on the other hand, just gives you a look like, “keep moving on, buddy”, which caused some beef between people, and maybe even fights if people really feel threatened.
Another difference in Texas and Florida is the food. Yes, the food. Some people in Texas might say: “No way! Florida has great seafood, and we don’t have very many seafood joints!” Yes, that may be true, but, the barbecue here is the bomb diggidy. Texas burgers? Magnificent. Texas fried chicken? Amazing. Texas pizza? Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Mexican food? SPICY! The only thing here that I miss from Florida is the seafood, but that’s okay, we’ll find a good seafood joint here eventually.
Texas and Florida also differ in sports. Everyone here is love with the Aggies and there is a big fan base here. Florida? It was mixed. You had your Gators fans, UCF fans, USF fans, FSU fans, The U fans(Aka me), and FAMU, yes even Florida A&M. This caused major tension between everyone. Some people got into fights for things like, “UF is better than FSU”, and vice versa. Texas is all about Johnny “Football” as my dad’s friends like to call him. I guess I’m the odd one out since I cheer for Miami, right?
The only real negative thing I’ve experienced so far is that, Texans don’t recycle like Floridians. Recycling is a huge thing in Tampa so huge that, they even have days for garbage men to pick up our recycling cans. Even in Florida schools there are recycle bins in classrooms and lunchrooms. When we recycled, it meant that we get to have less stinky garbage cans. There seems to be very little recycling in Bryan at home or school which is a little different for me. I have to get used to not asking people where the recycling bins are.
In the end, we still like video games, different music, all kinds of sports, people have quirks and perks, but you still can find something in common to talk about.