Reverse Culture Shock and Readjusting to Life in the USA

As I'm writing this, I've been back in the US for more than 6 months. I'm currently in Seattle finishing up the last few days of my internship and have been feeling particularly homesick for Lyon lately and missing my IBP friends a lot, so I though it would be a good time to write a follow-up blog post about everything that's been happening since I've been back. It's crazy that it was so long ago that I was in France! It seems like it was just yesterday that I was hanging out next the Rhône river, dancing on the bar at Cosmo, and walking through the streets of Lyon with my friends.

Saying that I had a hard time readjusting to life in the US would be an understatement. After returning, I had a good time spending some time with my family at Christmas and loved going to New York City for a couple of days. (We saw two different shows, The Fantasticks and Grace, and got to meet Paul Rudd, Aaron Carter, Michael Shannon, and Ed Asner!)

with Mommy, Lexi, and Daddy on Christmas Eve

the girls of the family on Christmas Eve

me and Lexi with our new friend Aaron Carter

me and Lexi eating our cupcakes from Crumbs in NYC

drinking a Cosmopolitan in Manhattan à la Carrie Bradshaw

But then I got back to Elon and the small-town southern school was a complete shock after experiencing life in a chic European city with a diverse group of friends from all over the world. For a couple of months, I felt depressed and not like myself and out of place. For a brief time, I even thought about possibly transferring to a school in a big city like New York and even considered de-sistering from my sorority which I did not feel much of a connection to after getting back from abroad. Over the course of the semester, I did slowly start to readjust to life at Elon and I started feeling less out of place during the second half of the Spring semester, but not quite like I had been before going abroad. I know that after living in France for a semester, I've gotten a taste of European and city living and feel like that is much more me, so I don't think I'll ever fully adjust to being back at Elon or in the US. Ever since leaving Europe, I feel like a piece of my heart is still there and, as weird as it may sound, I felt more at home in Lyon than I ever have in Duxbury or at Elon. Even though there were some challenges to being in Lyon (mainly the language barrier and trying to stay on a tight budget), I felt more myself than I ever had before and definitely felt more at home with an international group than I feel in a group of only Americans.

After coming back to the US, I know for sure that I want to return to Europe as soon as I can and have started to look into different programs abroad for the year after I graduate. I've already taken multiple steps to work toward getting more international experience! I added a one-credit class during the Spring semester called Going Global After Grad that helped us explore different options and taught us how to make ourselves marketable to international employers. I also decided to add a double major in international business and was accepted to be a Study Abroad Student Ambassador during my senior year! I know I'll have a great final year at Elon between being a SASA, getting really involved in my business fraternity, living with some great girls in a nice apartment, and still keeping in touch with my good friends from abroad! (Some of us girls are starting to plan a reunion trip together!)

To fill you in on everything that's been happening in the past 6 months, here's a quick summary:

For the Spring semester, I lived in the Oaks apartments with three girls who I had never met before. They were great to live with and over the course of the semester, we became good friends! None of them are in sororities, and I actually really enjoyed having a semester where I was kind of separated from Greek Life. I know I'll stay friends with them during my senior year. We had some great memories like Festivus, volunteering at the animal shelter, and being each other's wing women at the bar!

with 2 of my roommates, Lauren and Carly getting ready to go to a theme party

with Lauren after Festivus (the big mud party on campus)

one of the best parts of Spring semester was when Anna visited Elon to hang out with me and Kirsten!

One night at the bar I met some French guys who go to ESDES and were studying abroad at Elon for the semester!

I got involved in my business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi this semester as well. I was elected to the executive board as the Warden. The most exciting part of AKPsi this semester was when some of us when to a conference in Atlanta for a weekend. We attended different speakers during the day and then went out to different bars in Atlanta at night. I had so much fun that weekend, and I think that was actually the turning point that made me feel a little less depressed about being back in the US. Then throughout the semester, we had a new pledge class join the fraternity and at the end of the semester, we had a banquet at a restaurant where we had a nice dinner and they gave awards to the seniors.

with some of the AKPsi group in Atlanta

in Atlanta

in Atlanta

my AKPsi family (the "Sexy Fam") at banquet

with the other AKPsi execs at banquet

As soon as my last exam ended in May, I went home for all of 2 days and then left for Seattle, where I'm interning with Educational Homestay Programs, the non-profit division of EF Education First. The internship has been exhausting and a lot more work than I expected, but I'm learning a lot and making some good connections in the company. What my team has been doing is helping to recruit host families for exchange students coming to different towns in the Seattle area. We work about 12-15 hours most days and 7 days a week usually. By the time I leave, I will have had 3 days off in 2 months—so crazy! We have had booths at many farmers' markets, various festivals, and have also set up informational tables in front of grocery stores and libraries, clip boarded at events that we couldn't set up a table at, hung flyers all over the area, and have even gone through neighbourhoods knocking door to door. It's definitely not a glamourous internship, and I don't know if I could see myself working for this particular division of the company after I graduate, but I definitely want to look into working with one of the other divisions in Boston for after I graduate! From what I've heard from people who work in the Boston office, it has a great company culture and is a lot of fun!

Of course since I haven't had much time off, I haven't had a lot of time to explore the area and I've only been able to go into actual Seattle a few times. (The interns are staying at a hotel in the suburb of Bellevue.) On my first day off, fellow intern Julianne and I went to all the touristy spots in Seattle—Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, the top of the Space Needle, Gasworks Park, and Fremont. On my next day off, I went shopping in the big Bellevue Collection Mall and went to a beach park on Lake Washington. We also got lucky enough to get a couple mornings off during which I saw the Fremont Troll, walked through the University of Washington, and went to a cool outdoor mall next to the university. But my favourite experience of my time in Seattle was by far the day I saw Hot Chelle Rae in concert! They were performing at the finish line of the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon before flying down to San Diego to start their tour with Justin Bieber. I left the hotel at 6 AM to catch an early bus into Seattle and went to the Space Needle, which was where they were performing. When it started, I pushed my way to the front and centre spot at the show! It was so much fun and they were really great live! Then after the show, I had some time before I had to start heading back to Bellevue to recruit, so I walked to Pike Place Market and explored, then to Pioneer Square where I caught the bus out of the city. I was in such a good mood after the concert that I didn't even mind that I had to spend the afternoon standing outside a grocery store! I really like Washington. It's really pretty and kind of has a New England feel to it except everything is so much more green, the trees are huge, and there is no humidity. And although it was cloudy and a little rainy for my first couple of weeks here, for the most part, the weather has been beautiful. It definitely does not rain 24/7 like everyone says!

me in front of the Space Needle

me with fellow intern Julianne on top of the Space Needle

the King Street Station clock tower in Pioneer Square

Pike Place Market

the view of the Seattle skyline from Gasworks Park

me with the Fremont Troll

with the Fremont Troll

This was on the day I saw Hot Chelle Rae, and they performed in the park right next to the Space Needle

one of my favourite beaches—the one in Edmonds which was one of the towns we recruited in

As soon as I found out I would be sent to Seattle (I originally thought the internship would be in Boston and found out only a week and a half before I started that I was actually being sent to Washington instead), I was so excited that I would be able to see Virginia since she lives in BC, which is so close to Washington! (From reading my past blog posts, you'll know that she was one of my very best friends while I was in Lyon and I still consider her to be one of my best friends.) But by far the most disappointing part of the internship was that I wasn't allowed to take any weekends off to see her :'( Since she lives in Kamloops, it would have been a long drive for her to come to Seattle for a weekend or for me to go to Kamloops for one of my few days off. (It would be about a 6 hour drive each way according to Google maps.) So we had hoped to meet in the middle in Vancouver, but since she works during the week and I wasn't allowed to have a weekend off, it couldn't work out. That made me really sad since I haven't seen her since the middle of December, and I have no idea when I will be able to see her again.

At this point, the other three interns I worked with for most of the time have left. (I decided to extend my contract for an extra two weeks, but they decided not to.) A new guy came for a few days, but then they sent him to California to recruit there instead, and they sent another girl here. I'm really excited to be heading home in a few days. I only have two more days of recruiting to go and then I fly out at 7 AM on Monday morning! It will be nice to spend some time with my parents and Chloe and then go up to Vermont in a couple weekends to see Lexi and see one of the Summer Stock Theatre plays at St. Michael's College where she is interning this summer.

I am definitely looking forward to my senior year, and will probably post again in the future with more updates on what is going on and what I end up deciding to do after I graduate. Right now, I think the program I would most like to do is one in London in which I would take international business classes to work toward a postgraduate degree, have a full-time paid work placement, and live in an apartment in central London with other people in the program!

And don't get me wrong, while I have had a hard time with reverse culture shock after coming back from Lyon, it hasn't been all bad. There are some things that it's nice to get back to in the US—family and friends, Chloe, peanut butter, mac and cheese, good Wifi, Netflix streaming, and no conversion rate when I spend money.

I can sense that great things will happen for me over the next couple of years and I can definitely see myself returning to Europe very soon :)

Final Adventure of the Semester — Germany!

On the 15th of December, I said goodbye to Lyon. I would be going to Germany to see Vanessa! I finished packing up my room (it was so sad to see it all bare and my things all packed up) and managed to drag my two huge suitcases to the train station. Ciela met me there to see me off, and we both did quite a lot of crying (even though Ciela usually doesn't DO crying :) ) I continued to cry a little while I was on the train, and the people around me kept giving me weird looks. Once the first leg of the trip was complete and I had arrived in Paris, I realised that my next train was from a completely different station on the other side of the city, and I only had 45 minutes until I had to be on it! I rushed outside and managed to get a taxi (it wasn't a normal taxi. It was really fancy, so I think it was a town car service, but I had been in a rush so I took the first car I saw!) and arrived at the other station in about 35 minutes, just enough time to find my train and get settled. This next trip was pretty long, but after a while, I had arrived in Cologne, Germany!

Right when I stepped off the train, Vanessa was there to greet me with a mint hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts! We stored my luggage in the train station and then we headed out into the city. Right near the train station was a big Christmas market--much bigger and cooler looking than the one in Lyon! We got traditional German christmas drinks--hot chocolate with amaretto. They were so good! After that, we walked around the Christmas market some more and saw a huge Christmas tree. Then we went to a little outdoor bar where we tried some traditional Cologne beer. I'm not usually a beer person, but it was actually pretty good! Once we had hung out there for a little while, we walked for a while and came across the Rhine river. There was a bridge that we could see going across the river and Vanessa told me that it's like the bridge in Paris where people put a padlock on the side rails. She said there are even so many locks on the bridge that they have to remove some because it's weighing the bridge down too much. After that, it was time to head back to the train station to catch our train to Dinslaken, the town where Vanessa's family lives. Once we arrived in Dinslaken, her dad picked us up and took us back to their house. Once we had gotten all my stuff brought in, we had a little snack--some German pasta salad that had egg and apples in it! After that, we went up to bed and hung out for a little while before going to sleep.

the Dome in Cologne

the Cologne Christmas market

Christmas tree in Cologne

The next day, we slept in and then went to a sports bar down the street to watch the Duisberg football match. At first, they were losing but after they scored three goals in a row, everyone in the bar was cheering with excitement! Football (aka soccer) is another thing I'll miss about Europe. I actually like to watch it unlike American football or baseball which I find kind of boring. When the match was over (Duisberg won 4-2), we went back to Vanessa's for a late lunch. We had some more of the leftover pasta salad from the night before and a type of German sausage that was pretty good! After finishing up our lunch, we went back to the train station to catch our train to Kleve where we would be spending the next few days. Kleve is a little town in the far western part of Germany right near the border with the Netherlands. It's where Vanessa goes to university and where she has a flat with some friends. I really liked her flat and her roommates were really nice! I had already met her best friend Nicole when they came to the US a couple summer ago, so it was good to see her again. For dinner, we went to a tapas restaurant in Kleve that was nearby. Some of Vanessa and Nicole's friends came with us too--some other Germans and a guy from Spain. The tapas restaurant was really good! I got a hot chocolate with amaretto (the one at the Christmas market had been so good, I had to get another!) and a mexican wrap with chicken, veggies, and guacamole. After hanging out at the restaurant for a while, we went back to Vanessa's where we watched Sex and the City 2 and got to bed kind of early to get ready for our adventure the next day.

The next day, we had been originally planning to go back to Cologne, but since the weather was supposed to be bad and because the train from Kleve to Cologne would have taken a while, instead we decided to go to Nijmegen (pronounced like Niming) in the Netherlands! We took a bus and were there in about half an hour or 45 minutes. Nijmegen was such a cute little city and is the oldest city in Holland (more than 2000 years old!) As soon as we got there, we walked down the main street of the town and stopped at a little food stand to get some Dutch breakfast--chocolate-covered Belgian waffles, Dutch pastries, and churros! As we were walking around and eating, it started to rain, but the day was still fun! We walked around and saw all the Christmas decorations. We went into a few shops where I got some Dutch chocolates and Dutch cheese to take back to the US with me. We walked down to the Rhine river and all through the town. After a while, we stopped at a little cafe for some hot chocolate. We thought it was so cool that instead of bringing you hot chocolate pre-made, they brought you hot milk and let you pick whether you wanted dark, milk, or white chocolate and then you dropped in pieces of chocolate that melted in the milk. It was so chocolatey and so good! After that, we walked back to the bus stop and took the bus back to Kleve. Once we were back in Kleve, we went to the main shopping street and I helped Vanessa pick out some Christmas gifts to give people. Then we met up with a bunch of Vanessa's friends for dinner at a restaurant next to her apartment called Mama's pizza. It was a cool 50s-style diner. Me and Vanessa weren't super hungry, so we decided to split a salad with tuna, egg, cucumbers, and a yogurt dressing. It was delicious and by the time we finished eating it, I was kind of tempted to order a second one! After dinner, we went to her friends' apartment in the building next to hers to hang out for a while and then we went back to her place and watched some Sex and the City.

Nijmegen

Everyone in Holland rides bikes, and they were everywhere you looked!

Nijmegen

Nijmegen

the cheese shop

Nijmegen

Nijmegen

On day 4 of my German adventure, Vanessa had to go to class in the morning, so I went to class with Nicole who is an international business major. The class was in English, but since there was wifi in the school, I spent the class time online rather than paying attention to what the teacher was saying! After class was over, we went to the dining hall to meet Vanessa and get some lunch. The food was really good and really inexpensive! I got pasta with mushrooms and alfredo sauce, rice with vegetables, and chocolate mousse, all for under €3 ! After lunch, Vanessa, Nicole, and I went to the bus station to go to Oberhausen, the biggest mall in Germany. The bus was a little late, so by the time it got to the train station, we had just barely missed our train to the mall. The next one wasn't for an hour, so we did some shopping near the train station and then took the next train. The mall was huge and so cool with all of its Christmas decorations! We went into a bunch of stores and got some snacks in the food court and then went out into the big Christmas market outside. This Christmas market was really big like the one in Cologne. We went to one booth that had almonds that were cooked in all different things. There were Snickers flavoured ones, Kinder flavoured, amaretto, Bailey's, etc. We could try as many different kinds as we wanted before picking which one we wanted to buy. I got Nutella ones that were soo good! I also got some chocolate-covered strawberries that were to die for! After walking through the Christmas market for a while, it started to sprinkle a little, so we went into a restaurant for some hot chocolate. After that, we headed back to Kleve. We hung out with the friends next door for a while and then went back to Vanessa's where I watched some Gossip Girl with Nicole and another one of their friends.

The next day was my last full day in Europe :( The next day I would be flying out of Düsseldorf, which is right near Dinslaken, so we went back to Vanessa's house there. Once we were back at her house, I got my suitcases all packed (and made sure they weren't overweight), and then had some lunch. Her dad had been trying out different recipes to see what he should make for Christmas dinner, and he had us try a soup with sausage, potatoes, and vegetables that was so good! Then we went with her dad and brother to Essen to go shopping. We drove on the autobahn to get there, but it wasn't scary or all that exciting like I had expected! It was just a normal highway and every once in a while someone would speed past you! Once we got to Essen, me and Vanessa separated from her dad and brother and went to Primark. I had been to Primark when I was in Lisbon and I had fallen in love with it! This Primark was huge and had four floors of clothes and accessories. I ended up getting 8 different things for only €22! I got a pair of flats, a skirt, a bracelet, eyeliner, three different scarves, and gloves that are all really nice. After we were done shopping in Primark, we met up with Vanessa's dad and brother again and went to Duisberg to go to dinner. We went to an Italian restaurant called Vapiano's where you go up to a counter and tell the chef exactly what you want and they cook it right in front of you. It was so cool! I got penne pasta with a mushroom sauce and Death By Chocolate cake for dessert. The food all tasted really fresh and it was really good! I wish we had Vapiano's in the US! After Vapiano's we went back to Vanessa's house and got to bed early because the next morning we had to get up bright and early at 5:30AM!

In the morning, we had left lots of time to get to the airport in case there was traffic, but luckily there wasn't any! We got to the airport really early, and once I was checked in and got my bags checked and paid for, I still had lots of time before I had to catch my flight. So, me, Vanessa, and her dad went to the McDonald's downstairs for some breakfast to spend a little more time together before I would be leaving. After we ate and we said our goodbyes, I went through security and bought my final UK Cosmo magazine (I had gotten into the habit of buying them every time I travelled and had really become obsessed with the UK version of the magazine!) and went to my gate. The flight ended up being an hour late, but I had plenty of time to get to my next flight once I arrived in Dublin for a layover. I had been hoping to do some shopping in the Dublin airport gift shops, but I had to go through the US Customs before my next flight and didn't have enough time. In total, it took more than an hour and I had to go through customs and three different security checkpoints. It was a little insane! The flight was long but not too bad. They gave us good food, afternoon tea, and I was sitting next a really cute old British woman.

At the airport with Vanessa before going back to the USA

I started feeling emotional when I got into Boston because I just didn't feel like I was ready to be back in the US yet! I was really sad to be leaving Europe since I don't know when I will be going back again, but it was good to see my family when I got to the airport. And even though I was so sad about leaving Europe, I know that I will be back there again soon. After living in Europe for three and a half months, I really feel like I'm a European at heart and really felt like I was at home there. I know for a fact that I will be living in London someday, but until then I will enjoy the time I have in the US :)