ten things i learned during my first month in houston.

I can’t believe I’ve already been living in Houston for a whole month!

Time has seriously flown by, but not without a bunch of lessons.

Nothing bad or life-threatening, just… lessons. lol 

Anyway!

Here are ten things i learned during my first month in H-town.

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1. When they say, “Everything is bigger in Texas”, they’re talking about meal sizes. 

I really try to stay away from fast food, but during our first week here, when we were so busy unpacking and getting our lives together, desperate times called for desperate measures. I’ve heard it’s called the #Texas10 (I haven’t gotten on the scale to check), but literally every meal comes with large fries, large drink, large portions, large EVERYTHING. My boyfriend even asked for a small one time and the worker replied, “Well it comes with a large so…” lol.

Long story short, don’t be surprised when you can’t finish a meal.

While we’re talking about meals…

2. Jack in the Box + What-a-Burger = devil.

Stay away. Just… listen to me and stay away. They will both have you questioning how you ended up in the drive-thru for the 2nd time in a matter of days. And if you do choose to indulge, don’t say I never warned you. lol

3. Every freeway has a name and a number.

GPS has been an absolute Godsend since moving to this city of freeways, highways, tollways, interstates, etc. Things get even more confusing when people choose to reference a particular route by its name instead of its number or vice versa. For example, I live off of 290. If we’re going to and from the city, we use 290. GPS calls it Northwest Fwy. AND there are two routes that take a literal loop around the city, so you may be in the loop or outside of the loop, which are also often used as points of reference.

Actually while we’re talking about getting around the city, let me also throw this out…

4. Tollways are avoidable.

Forgot to grab some money for the tollways? No problem. Hop on the feeder road! Though the feeder roads are slower paced since you have actual streetlights to stop at, it’s certainly worth it if you wanna avoid the ticket from not stopping to pay.

5. Strip Malls are full of surprises.

Houston is jam-packed with strip malls and they aren’t your ordinary strip malls. There’s one behind my apartment that literally has a bank, a liquor store, a noodle house, an eye doctor, a beauty supply store/salon, amongst other things. Take the time to look at the overcrowded signs; you may find a gem.

6. V-Live is BYOB.

Talk to just about anybody in Houston, and they’ll tell you V-Live is the after party place to be. Now, let’s be clear, it is a strip club. Like legitimate, couple of poles, multiple level strip club. BUT it’s BYOB; meaning if you make it to the liquor store before it closes at like 9 PM, then you can take that bottle with you!

Win-Win… if that’s your thing. lol

7. InDMix.com is a compilation of every party flier ever handed out.

Okay, so you know after big events maybe a concert, comedy show, or whatever, you may find a flier on your car advertising an after party, event coming soon, or something of that nature? Houston had this AWESOME idea of allowing events to be advertised in one place, online. So when you’re looking for something to do, maybe a day party, madden tournament, whatever, you can just go to that website. Whenever we wanna go out in the city, that’s always our first stop. AND I never have to accept another party flier again…. not that they aren’t handed out because they definitely are lol.

8. Always have an umbrella.

So since we’ve been here, it’s literally rained once at least every couple days, sometimes a few days in a row. It’s hardly ever an all day rain, sometimes only 15-20 minutes. But, I’d advise you to always be prepared for it because one minute its sunny, next minute there’s a thunderstorm and sometimes there’s both! (Yes, that really happened. lol)

9. If you go shopping at The Galleria, remember your milestones.

If you know anything about Houston, you know The Galleria is the premiere place to shop at. Tons of stores, huge range of brands being sold, but you will easily get lost if you’re not paying attention. Even if you only remember what store you parked by, it will pay off because after walking around for awhile, things will become a blur.

10. Lizards, and geicos, and chameleons. Oh my!

One of the biggest things I”m still adjusting to living in Houston, is the assortment of wild life; particularly the lizard-y type things. I mean, they’re everywhere and they’re fast and they jump and I just can’t… but I’m learning to be able to! Lol!

The maintenance man certainly didn’t help by informing me that sometimes they’ll sneak into the apartment if you leave the window open or door open so yeah… watch the sidewalks. And the walls. And the ceilings. lol

I could probably extend this list to 15, maybe even 20 BUT I’ll leave it up to you to visit and find out! 🙂