After college, I moved to Moscow, Russia and 3 years later, a suburb of Houston, Texas. Having spent the last 6 years near huge metropolis areas, I was very excited about our family's recent out-of-state move to Batesville, Arkansas. A town of 10,000 sounded lovely. Yes, I miss Starbucks and Target, but I'm pretty sure I'll endure this trial. :)
"Small" is a relative term
I was reminded of this when I was speaking to a young lady about Batesville and referred to it as a "small town". She laughed just as I would've 15 years ago.
Mr. or Ms. + first name
I had completely forgotten about this way of showing respect to your elders. When the youth group girls asked if they should call me Ms. Andrea, I assured them I wasn't old enough to be requiring the title. Am I? Eeeek
Family Doctors
Family doctors are a common practice that seem to be rarely used in the big city. There's a specialist for everything and that's who you see.
The Daily Commute
What is that? Traffic is truly a non-issue. On the other hand, you may need to drive 1 1/2 hours to get a service or store that you need.
Everybody Knows Your Name
So that's a bit of an exaggeration but I've yet to meet someone who didn't know someone else that I knew... which is saying something for only having been here 2 weeks. I remember from my childhood that the negative side of this is that a bad reputation can be hard or impossible to live down. But other than that, I love the community/family feel that we've experienced here. Perhaps it's more our church's culture than the Batesville culture, but I don't think I've ever experienced a more organic, friendly, and hospitable community.