Sweet Home Alabama!

Here is a little recap from my road trip to Alabama and my first wedding in the US!

The drive to Mobile, Alabama from Springfield, Missouri was very long, it was about 650 miles long, and we were in the car for around 12 hours including a few stops along the way. We drove through five of the 52 US states: Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. I got to see many things when driving through these states, mostly farmland and forests. One thing that was cool to see was the Bass Pro Shops pyramid when driving through Memphis.

Something that I learned on our journey was that there is a plant called Kudzu, which is a vine that has spread through the South of America. Kudzu is an invasive plant that grows on many trees and other plants, preventing them from getting enough sunlight, which kills the trees. Kudzu is known as “the vine that ate the South”. Driving along the southern roads I saw much of this plant, and majority of the trees were covered in it.

The day after arriving in Mobile it was time to attend the wedding of one of my old teammates from Drury. This was my first time attending a wedding in the US. The wedding took place outdoors in a botanical garden. It was very beautiful and touching to be there to watch one of my close friends get married. However, due to the warm climate in the south it was extremely warm outside, a lot warmer than what it usually is like in Missouri. I have only been to weddings in my home country of Sweden before, and there were some cultural differences. The thing that stood out to me the most was that the ceremony was very traditional, very similar to what you would see in an American movie or TV show.

Overall it was a great time where I got to experience a lot of southern American culture in the form of people, food, nature, and everything in between.