My master told a parable once, that you should pray and not lose heart. When you face the corruption of life, He says "Come boldly and trust Me."

So today was my last full day living in Columbia... for now. I would say "ever", but who knows what God has in store for Erin and I? Well, He does obviously.... but you get the point. Either way, it was the last day living in South Carolina for at least 4-5 years. 

My dad is in town to help me move, and we grabbed some dinner tonight with some friends.

Here is my future wife telling me to not take pictures of her. Look how good Degar is at posing and pretending he doesn't know I'm taking his picture.

I returned from an awesome dinner at my favorite Columbia restaurant, Miyo's, to continue packing up my apartment. OOF.

I feel like I should attempt to reflect on my time in South Carolina. I have learned and grown a lot.

I grew up in Miami, arguably the most culturally diverse city in America. I was raised participating in other cultures traditions, and learning to speak another language just to order a burger. But from living in South Carolina, I never imagined Miami would be a source of such "Cultured Ignorance". A large portion of the people in Miami travel the globe, eat exotic foods, speak different languages, and go out to fancy restaurants in obscure designer clothes. All this without having a FREAKING CLUE as to what goes on in the rest of the country. You have a large population of people who regularly  travel to South America, but have never gone north of Florida.

I could go on and on about the differences between Miami and living in South Carolina, but I won't. But I will say that I no longer have to answer the question, "So you live on a farm / in the country?", when I tell someone in Miami that I reside in South Carolina. Good God people.

I will miss having REAL BBQ with mustard bbq sauce.  I will miss seeing palmetto trees on every car, shirt, and frat dude's shoulder (OK, maybe not the last one as much.) I will miss having more local country stations than alternative rock and hip-hop COMBINED. I will miss this state, and it's been an honor living in it for 4 years.

Here's a health Carolina, forever to thee.