10 Things That Blew My Mind When I First Moved to the US

Things that blew my mind when I first moved to the US.

International students are starting to arrive on campus for orientation, and it reminded me of my own experience moving to the US as an international student back in August 2007.

Here are the top 10 things that completely blew my mind:

1. Domino's Pizza — You could call from your dorm room and have hot pizza delivered? What? 2. Walmart's bread aisle — I'd never seen so many options for something as basic as bread. 3. Unlimited soda refills — I kept thinking, aren't they worried people will just sit here and drink soda all day? 4. Drive-thrus — Fast food drive-thrus were one thing, but you could go to the bank in your car too? 5. Potlucks — You're invited to someone's house and you're supposed to bring food? Isn't that the job of the host? 6. Chinese buffet — All-you-can-eat for $5.99? This felt like premium dining to me. 7. Ramen noodles — Back home, instant noodles were for the well-to-do. Now I could buy them for just a few cents? 8. Calling professors by their first name — In Nigeria, you could get in trouble just for thinking about doing that. 9. Winter — The sun would be shining bright and it'd still be freezing cold. How does this even work? 10. Dry towns in the South — You can't buy wine but you can buy fireworks?

Some of these things may not feel as shocking now. Smartphones and social media have closed a lot of the gaps. But these moments felt like a big deal back then.

Now, I laugh about them. But I'll never forget how new and overwhelming it all felt.

So if you're starting fresh in a new country: soak it all in. The little things will surprise you. Embrace the confusion and don't be afraid to ask questions. And one day, you'll have your own stories to tell too.