You came to Hutch from where?!

If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me over the course of the last nine months “why choose Hutchinson, Kansas of all places?” I would be one very rich Australian living in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Choosing to make my way halfway across the world to Hutchinson Community College to play basketball clearly seems a random decision to some, but for me, it was a no brainer.

My home in the sunny city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia is a far cry from this small city in the middle of ‘woop woop’ (that’s Australian for ‘middle of nowhere’), so I was expecting nothing short of an adventure, and an exciting one at that. Now, as my year at HutchCC comes to an end, I can give you a list of the things that surprised me about this little adventure of mine.

Not going to lie, I am not a country girl, and this is the absolute closest I have ever come to ‘country living’. The lifestyle in Hutch is completely different to mine in the big city. People walk slowly, strangers greet you on the street and there are always at least two tractors parked in every supermarket parking lot.

I must say this slower paced lifestyle was hard to adjust to, and early on in the fall I struggled to fill my weekends. If you know me at all, I am always on the go and struggle to be bored, so I decided to fill these blank spaces in my schedule with long walks to get coffee. It was here that a tradition was born, and I came to look at my weekend strolls as my opportunity to explore the area. One thing I love about Hutch are all the hidden treasures dotted around the place. I make it my mission to find beauty everywhere I go, and even though at first glance Hutchinson may seem devoid of it (especially in the dead of winter) I have managed to find it everywhere. The spray painted