Coming Home to Culture Shock

© Flickr / gaobo

“Donde Estamos?” I asked when the touchdown of the overnight plane jolted me awake. The gentleman in the seat next to me cocked his head and gave me a blank stare. My mind did several sleepy clicks and calculations before it came to the correct conclusion. Ah yes, I was back in the United States.

“Where are we?” I asked again. This time his face broke into a gentle smile and he told me we were in Seattle.

Using English as my default language was one of dozens of adjustments I would have to make in order to integrate back into American society. After traveling alone in Mexico, Central and South America for almost seven months, I'd had enough time outside my own culture to have developed some interesting default behaviors. Like thinking in Spanish.

© Alisa Clickenger / RumBum.comI was definitely still in tranquilo mode. I was running at a much slower pace than the rest of the non-Latin world. Having broken my habit of obsessive rule following (waiting my turn in line, getting all my documentation 100% in order, following the letter of the law) I was still bending bending rules with an enigmatic grin on my face.

There were some good things about being back in the U.S. I was relieved to be able to drink tap water again. It was definitely easier to have the speed limit signs posted in miles per hour, as was my odometer, rather than always having to do a mental calculation from kilometers to miles And it was downright bliss to eat a salad without without worrying about whether the veggies had been washed properly and whether I would get salmonella again.

But I really missed being able to cut to the head of a traffic line at a construction stop. I missed being able to park my motorbike inside a hotel lobby. I missed exotic fresh fruits and vegetables. I missed the daily challenge of getting a cup of coffee exactly the way it pleased me. I missed the open curiosity of people encountering a woman traveling alone on a motorbike and the ensuing conversations. Most of all, I missed the wonder of having everything I saw be new and different and unfamiliar.

In all, it only took about three days to feel one hundred percent normal in my native culture again. But in those three days there were countless adjustments – some big, others small, almost all of them making me or my friends chuckle as I re-integrated into American culture. My basic personality has remained the same, but my outlook on things and my urgency level about life has transformed dramatically. 

Isn't that what travel adventure is about? Immersing ourselves in another culture so that we come back renewed with a view into others and insights into ourselves that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives? I am looking forward to witnessing the changes I bring about in my life, and in the lives of others, with my new outlook on life.