I visited the apple orchard with a freshman and her mother. Apparently, you go to apple orchards in the fall in America. We walked through the pumpkin patch. You get to pick and choose your pumpkins. Apparently. We had apple cider donuts and apple cider. That's what you eat in the fall. Apparently.
But that wasn't the real cultural experience for me. I absolutely love that... I definitely love soaking up seasonal experiences that I never quite got in Colombia. However, the cultural experience was talking to them and learning about life in rural America. Their hometown had 500 people. I tried wrapping my mind around an upbringing in a town of 500 people. Certainly less people than those that lived in my conjunto growing up. Their nearest neighbors were a quarter of a mile away. They raised cattle and swine. The "noisy" interstate that we could hear from where we were (I hadn't even noticed it, to be quite frank) was absolutely no where to be found. This one was probably the most shocking for me: In their entire county-- county!!!!-- there was only one stoplight. If they wanted to go grocery shopping for ethnic-type foods, they had to drive two hours away into the nearest "big city"-- Rockford, IL (slightly over 150,000 according to the 2011 census).
They pointed out good pumpkins for picking and bad ones. I learned what male and female pumpkin flowers look like and I just was honestly amazed by this totally different world. She came to Champaign, thinking it was a metropolis and I frequently got frustrated by the small-town feel!!
Our upbringings are so influential of what's "normal" for us and what's "comfortable" for us.
I literally was amazed by how different this life in rural Illinois was.
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