i thought i had pretty bad culture shock when i got home from my mission. i had a hard time connecting with people and fitting in. i wore weird clothes, listened to strange music (not much has changed in four years), and talked with a dadusk accent. as difficult as this was, it is nothing compared to what katie and i are experiencing now. moving from provo to athens has opened our eyes to a new civilization (or lack thereof).
now, there are some things about provo and athens that are the same. for instance, sunday is pretty quiet in both towns. however, the reasons for sunday shutdown are "something completely different." people in provo are getting ready for church, hometeaching, and watching the 49ers (its ok, they have a mormon QB). on the other hand, athenians are so hung over from the day before that they are physically unable to emerge from their apartments.
we thought that byu was a big football school. people there are crazy, what with the tortilla throwing and other shenanigans. but athens is worse!!! the weekend of a home football game, preparations start friday night with big parties. all saturday morning is devoted to tailgating (i had to explain to kt what tailgating meant and why people do it). then saturday night, you guessed it, more parties, andsunday is the day of rest, just like in provo.
now, there are lots of little things that are great examples of how the hopes and dreams of everyone in athens rests on the football team's performance. for instance, the electronic signs on buses say things like "bus 27......uga library......go dawgs......beat them vols!!!." another is that i cannot park in my own parking space on gameday. if i were to try and study at the library on a gameday, my car would be towed.
friday night was another good example. kt and i were braving the weekend crowd to do some shopping when we realized an eight mile radius around the campus was closed for the homecoming parade. we found a place to park, and ended up watching the parade because of the entertainment value. almost all the floats in the parade were regular trailers with people from various fraternities sitting on a couch. decorations were minimal, they are poor college kids. we were surprised not to see any floats re-inacting the pioneer trek.
as you might guess, homecoming in provo is much different; its much more crazy considering the creativity needed for asking someone to a dance (check out eric snider's "homecoming horror for one of the greatest byu satires ever [link]). in short, both cities are weird, only for different reasons.
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