I'm leaving in less than 2 weeks. And I only now remembered that things are different outside of Texas. I'll probably miss a lot of things about this place:
- Texas Barbeque
- Barbeque elsewhere, while good, isn't the same. There's nothing like stuffing yourself with brisket, sausage, ribs, raw onions, pickles, jalapeños, sauce, and cheap white bread, with no particular rhyme or reason.
- Good steak
- Steakhouses here are absolutely better. Whenever someone opens up a new location for a famous steakhouse from Chicago or New York or somewhere, it inevitably leaves me disappointed. Ruth's Chris, Morton's, Sullivan's, and Strip House (of the Glazier Group) are more expensive than and are considerably less impressive than the more local (but still corporate, I know) Taste of Texas and Pappas Steakhouse.
- Asian food
- I don't think I'll get any good Asian food for a couple years, either. I don't think any of the places I'll be living will have a sufficient Chinese or Vietnamese population to offer decent Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants. I'll be lucky if I can find a Chinese place that actually serves Chinese food besides crappy stir-fry in a (shudder) buffet. Maybe I'll be able to discover a good Thai restaurant - something nobody in Texas seems to know how to operate.
- Taquerias where nobody knows English
- What I'll probably miss the most is the random 3 AM trip to some hole-in-the-wall taqueria where I can grunt broken spanish and order huge burritos for $3. Who knows, maybe they actually have these types of places in Georgia and North Carolina, but I doubt it.
- Beer
- My 3 most commonly consumed beers - Fat Tire, Ziegenbock, and Sunshine - are not available in Georgia or North Carolina.
- Austin people
- I love studying people in Austin the way some people study gorilla social behavior. I find it to be fascinating with all the different types of people and their interactions within the community. It's my dream to one day study the sociology and anthropology of San Francisco, too.
It appears that 4 out of 6 things that I think I'll miss have to do with food and restaurants, and a 5th is about a beverage. Maybe blogging on an empty stomach isn't such a good idea. But yeah, there's plenty of stuff that I won't miss:
- Weather
- While I know Georgia weather is pretty hot, too, I can't fathom how it could be worse than here. I wonder if it rains during the winter there, too.
- Mosquitoes
- The aforementioned winter rains seem to breed mosquitoes, too. Not one of the 12 months are safe from mosquito bites, and the summer is absolutely ridiculous. At least it's not as bad as the tiger mosquitoes of Asia, though. Those are vicious and have even been known to kill infants.
- Fat people
- I strongly suspect that the fat people are all over the country, and that this demographic will be well represented in Georgia and North Carolina (homes of The Varsity and Carolina BBQ, respectively). Still, I'm hoping that the high concentration of military personnel wherever I'll be will dampen the fatass numbers a bit.
Who am I kidding - I'm not escaping from any of those by going to Georgia. Well, I'll only be at Fort Benning for a couple months. How different could Georgia be from Texas, anyway? I do hope the chow halls I encounter don't suck, though.
