Back home and feeling a little bit of reverse culture shock: not having to tackle waiters to get the check, not knowing how or what to recycle, not using cash and coins. It’s been just a week, and I can feel my language skills slipping even though I’m still consuming input in German.
One of the weirder effects of my study abroad is that it hasn’t ever felt like Christmas to me. The Germans don’t do the lights on their houses, they don’t play Christmas music in the stores, they don’t take pictures with mall Santas. They still do the Christmas trees and advent calendars, and they have their Christmas Markets, but none of it felt real, it all felt like it was for show. I think that not having a traditional Thanksgiving and everything that comes with that played a big role in why it hasn’t felt like Christmas.
I don’t feel that I’ve changed too drastically as a person, maybe I have some more fashionable clothes now, maybe I talk a bit quieter, maybe I’m much more patient after traveling with the Deutsche Bahn for four months. I’ve learned a lot about our American-isms though. When we get into large-ish groups we are very loud. The rest of the world makes fun of us because we only learn about America in school. We draw stark differences between ethnicity and nationality which confused most of the international students I came across: German, Italian, Japanese, all of them. But we Americans are much friendlier and much more respectful to personal space than any other nationality I came across. None of it is bad per say, it’s just different.
I’ve always wanted to live in Germany and after finally getting to do that, I can’t say that that’s a box checked off, that I don’t feel the desire to return again and live there on a more permanent basis.
