Adriane Stoner’s lecture caught my attention because I was able to relate to her experiences with culture shock. Her lecture focused on this subject while studying abroad and I found myself relating to this topic in different ways. The majority of my family resides in Europe and I have been fortunate enough to travel there often to visit. I have experienced the vacationing aspect and also a bit of the schooling process as well. Culture shock is definitely something that people will experience while visiting Europe and I believe that one can experience it in a very short amount of time frame, such as a week.
I have personally traveled to Poland, Austria, Germany, as well as London. Besides the language barrier, the entire way of life differs greatly from the US. One thing that I learned from my travels about Europe is that people enjoy life on a much higher level than people in the U.S., which is something that I admire. I find it very often that in the U.S, people are constantly working, which in turn leads to famous expressions such as, “People live to work”. In Europe businesses are closed on Sundays which is considered a family day. Saturdays everything closes around 5:00pm and everyone makes an effort to spend time with the family by sitting down at a dinner table and enjoy a family dinner. On the down side, everything from daily commute all the way to the financial aspect is drastically different than that of the U.S. Not everyone owns a vehicle there and more people take public transportation. The roads are narrow and in different parts of Europe highways can be quite rare, which leads to very long commutes.
The economical state of Europe is also a bit on the shocking side. Everything is far more expensive compared to the U.S because of it. However, depending on the location one travels to, everyone for the most part, is friendly and helpful . Then there are those parts of Europe such as Paris where people are extremely rude and arrogant. The schooling process is also very different. Although, education is much more affordable than it is out here, often times it is also much more demanding and difficult.
Lastly, my views on communicating were a bit different than those of Adriane’s. I did find it much more difficult to find means of communicating with my family in the states. Not only because the time difference is about seven hours ahead, but also because their rate plans are so expensive I was unable to pick up the phone at any given time and call my family. Cell phone use was pretty much restricted to its use only within Europe. I was only able to use landline phones with a calling card or I would have to wait for my family to call me. Although the internet access was much more available, I found myself never being able to communicate fully at a given hour and finding myself waiting for a response due to the 7hr time difference. This was very difficult for me to adjust to due to the time zone difference.
Often times, I believe we take advantage of the privileges that we have until we are faced with different circumstances. I love the fact that I am fortunate enough to own a vehicle, a mobile device and minor things that we often do not appreciate or acknowledge until we are faced with rather inconvenient circumstances. I enjoyed Adriane’s lecture very much and I was able to relate to her experience. I believe culture shock is inevitable however, it is something that that everyone should experience.
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