Welcome to Oregon, Enjoy your stay, unless you're a Californian, then go home.

I am a California girl. I was born there and raised there, and with the state being the second largest in the Continental united states (and vastly overpopulated) it isn't really that surprising. On the west coast it isn't difficult to find Californians, there are so many of us we have started to merge into the other states as well, and everywhere we go we try and turn it into "more California." Where other people move to new states but remember what it was like "back home" we, instead, opt for moving to new places and find ways to make it just like California.


While I was not so "California" that I owned a purse dog, shopped on Rodeo drive, or said the word "like" as every other word, I did own obnoxiously large sunglasses, know how to pronounce Rodeo drive, and said "hella" a lot. I have since expanded my vocabulary to eliminate most of my California slang, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

My senior year of High School, my family decided "Hey! Great idea, lets move to Oregon!"

Me: Um...what?
Grandma: Yeah, I'm retiring, and I've always wanted to live on the Oregon Coast and raise llamas.
Me: Can we not raise llamas here?
Grandma: No, you raise llamas in Oregon.
Me: I'm a senior in High School!
Mom: Exactly! This is your last chance to go to school someplace else.
Me: This sounds like trickery to me.

Needless to say at 17 I lost the argument, and my whole family, mom, stepdad, grandparents, aunt, 2 dogs, 2 parakeets, 1 parrot, 2 cats and a bowl full of goldfish, we made the trek up to Oregon.

I remember several things about this voyage, but when we were on the freeway I caught a billboard advertising a local Indian Casino. The Casino was running a series of campaign adds at the time that were using the slogan, "Luck happens" they would have commercials where a guy would be spreading peanut butter on his toast and drop it on the kitchen floor and then it would land peanut butter side up and they would freeze the frame and say "Luck Happens" and then do all the blah blah blah about the Casino.

Well on this billboard it had a picture of the West Coast Map. Only it cut out the shape of California and filled it with water. Under this map image were the words "Luck Happens." I was doomed.

Oregonians as a whole are nice people, sometimes a little too nice, but I'm not complaining, but they are also very territorial. They don't like Californian's coming in and screwing up their backwoods ways. (Now that I've lived here 11 years I find myself sometimes doing it too) Because I had the summer to get used to Oregon, I figured the first day of my senior year at a new school wasn't going to be that scary. How wrong I was.

I walked into the school confident, excited, and confused (because unlike my nice open air California schools, all of the classes were contained inside one building, which was odd to me) I had used a pair of sunglasses to hold back my hair, which was really fairly normal to do in Sunny California. Just as I had walked into the building a woman comes tearing out of the office at me like I walked into school with a gun. She snatches the sunglasses from my head and takes them from me. I was left with a dumbfounded look. Did my mother drop me off at the wrong place? Was this the local Californcentration camp?

Office Lady: You can't wear those in here!
Me: Oh...kay....
Office lady: At this school those are a gang sign.

I was in complete shock, and I couldn't stop myself.

Me: Really? Because in California it just means the Sun is out.
Office Lady: Don't get smart with me young lady!
Me: God forbid I should be educated in your backwoods state.

I had detention the first day of school. I was also asked my first day of school a verbal cornucopia of the following questions:
1. Do you know any celebrities!
2. Can you surf?
3. How many times have you been to Disneyland?
4. Did you used to have a big house with a pool?
5. What kind of car do you drive?

I'm not sure why the kids at my small town school were convinced all Californian's lived next door to celebrities in big houses with pools which they surfed in before they drove their sports car to Disneyland, but I knew that I would not be able to survive here.No I don't know any celebrities, no I can't surf, nor have I ever tried, I didn't live anywhere near the ocean. Okay I've been to Disney an obnoxious amount of times, but that's a different story. I did not have a pool, and we had a moderately sized house. My car? My car was a beat up blue 95 Honda accord. Because anyone who gives a 17 year old a new sports car is an idiot.

Well I did survive here. It's been 11 years, and I am now entering my last year in Oregon. It seemed like the perfect time to reflect on all of the things that have changed me and that I've had to deal with here as a Californian, before my life takes me off on my adventures.