Westward, Ho!

It's official: we're moving West.

After nearly three years of life in the heart of Washington D.C., we're leaving our little apartment on Capitol Hill for the great unknown - Carson City, Nevada. Mr. TPG was offered a wonderful job in what I imagine is a sleepy town at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I imagine because, well, I've never actually been there. Carson City is not far from where I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, I've made the drive up to both north and south Lake Tahoe numerous times to go skiing and snowboarding, but I've never spent that extra thirty minutes on the road that it takes to reach Carson City.

Carson City, Nevada (from forbes.com)

It's somewhat daunting to agree to move to a new city in a new state sight unseen. However, I've done just that on three occasions in the past decade: a four-month study abroad stint in Tokyo, Japan on my first trip to Asia; a four-month stint in Washington D.C. as a bright-eyed undergraduate intern; and an eight-month stint with an NGO in Lusaka, Zambia on my first trip to Africa. I suppose Carson City is not nearly as foreign as Japan and Zambia, which truly are foreign, but this move differs from those in two respects.

First, this is a move without an end date. It's not a short-term project or assignment. It could potentially be our home for many years to come. Tell this to a girl who has lived in eleven different apartments/houses in six different cities over the last ten years, and who claims "wanderlust" as a top-ten favorite word, and you begin to understand some of the anxiety.

Second, everywhere I have ever lived has been a large city, or a smaller city within a large metropolitan area. (See here for interesting statistics.) While a population of 55,000 isn't necessarily rural, it's certainly smaller than any place I've ever called home. I've spent time in much more desolate places (e.g. back country backpacking in Montana, camping out in the desert in Namibia, work trips to villages in the Zambian bush), but always to return "home" to city life. Furthermore, I've spent the last five years living in San Francisco and Washington D.C. -- both fairly hip cities full of young professionals, tons of character, and fast-paced and competitive job markets.

I'm preparing myself for a little bit of culture shock.

My final semester of law school wraps up in exactly one week, and we will be residents of Nevada by the end of the month. It definitely feels like I'm on the brink of a big adventure, and I invite you to join me for the journey.