Altitude Affects Attitude

First Impressions

When Jason got to Asheville, he had a couple of days to explore the city before he had to report to the store. He would be living in a hotel and driving a rental car while he was getting himself ready to move down there. I really wanted to find out what the downtown area was like so he drove through and told me that there were a lot of people walking around and that the downtown was busy at night. Sounded pretty cool to me.

I did as much research as I could online about the city and realized that it was A LOT smaller than Columbus. I work at a newspaper and the population of Asheville was not even as much as our daily circulation! I got really worried when I found out that they were at that time building their first Target! Jason said the town was really nice so I began to plan my first visit so I could see for myself. I visited at the end of September.

I really think I set myself up for disappointment before I got there. I had this idea in my head that Asheville was this hip, trendy urban paradise in the middle of the mountains and that it would be just like living in a big city, but on a smaller scale. I dropped him off at work and headed downtown. I parked the car at a meter and walked for about 1/2 an hour before I decided that I didn't like it. I called my friend Melissa and told her how disappointed I was and that I didn't think I could live there. She told me to relax and that I really needed to give it more than 30 minutes before I made up my mind and reminded me that I had the whole weekend to explore and find out what the area was all about.

As the weekend progressed, I told myself to be a little more open minded and gave it a chance. We went to some awesome restaurants downtown and walked around the crowded streets at night. In Columbus, there are only a couple little areas downtown that have any activity in them, so this was a welcome change to see the whole downtown alive with energy and people.

I started to become cautiously optomistic about this whole moving thing...

posted by Brent @ 10:03 PM