Weatherford... where Cutting is such a big deal even Ronald McDonald does it himself.
So of course I had to take a tacky tourist photo! Ronald was doing it brideless on a paint too! What a talented rider - who knew?!
I try my hardest not to stereotype or generalize people or cultures, but there's definitely similarities and a lot of differences too. (Texas is pretty far from home, I'm leaning towards differences for the most part). My co-workers definitely like to poke fun at my "canadian-ness" and I've been immersed in a world of food that I am not used to, but I am always game to try anything! (Maybe it's the Canadian in me ;) hahaha)
For example, I tried Cajun food at a restaurant called "Boo-Rays" in Weatherford, TX. We had Alligator to start, and then I moved on to bacon wrapped shrimp in crawfish hollandaise. People in real life eat like this regularly? I would be 60000 lbs. Another day, I also tried "nutbread sandwiches" at an adorable little cafe, which were banana bread sandwiches with cream cheese in the centre, again... people eat like this? They were delicious but I just about popped a button on my jeans. I was also surprised to see that americans don't have ginger beef at their Chinese restaurants, guess that's a Canadian-Chinese thing, it was invented in Calgary dontyaknow? I guess I could get "real texan" and say, "ya'll don't have ginger beef ova here?" So.Many.Ya'lls. In fact, my boss' 8 year old daughter had a shirt the other day that said "Every smile starts with ya'll", I wanted to mug her for that shirt. What? Did I just say that? Ya'll just know I'm kiddin' dont ya? (No I'm not, I am ruthless)
Alligator (Deep Fried, of course). Tasted kinda like popcorn shrimp!
Jambalaya and Shrimp et Brouchette (I think that's what it was called anyways) yummy, yummy, yummy.
On the topic of the language there is definitely some difference there, my favourite is "I'm just fixin' to...", such as where I would say "I'm thinking of riding that horse next", I often hear, "I'm fixin' to ride that horse next." Never fails to make me smile.
Is everything bigger in Texas? Well, I have seen more car dealerships that take up city blocks than anywhere else in my life. We also went to a pre-work at a very famous ranch the other day. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Everything was monogrammed with the ranch's name - the barn help/trainers/lopers all had shirts, hats and vests with the ranch's name on it. The barn staff houses all had porch lamps with the initials of the ranch's engraved in them. Finally, there were gardens everywhere, and each garden had a rock or a statue with the ranch's name. They had a 12 ft statue of a bucking horse and a rider right outside their beautiful kitchen and lounge area. They also had TV's outside of the indoor arena so that the lopers in the warm-up pens could catch the news of the day... casual. Finally, their cow pens each had automatic waterers... made out of beautiful cobblestones. Those cows were drinking in style!
This cow is doing okay in my books.
Finally, is Texas a bit more "god-fearing" than I'm used too...
... Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you wouldn't see much of this in my neck of the woods.
Finally, I was informed of a "fun activity" that people do called "noodling". Which is the act of snorkeling to a cave underneath a lake, reaching your hand in, letting a catfish chomp down on you and then hauling it up to the surface. This, to me, sounds like a game the devil created to torture humans... apparently this is "fun"... No texans, you are wrong.
Not okay, simply not okay.
