Culture Shock

The lecture Adriane Stoner gave to the class about her research on studying abroad and the use of new technology was interesting. I want to study abroad but probably will never get the chance to but I have traveled and been away from home for almost a month except I was with my family. We traveled through Europe. Even thought I was with my family and not staying in the same places for very long I did go through a little culture shock on that trip. I went with my aunt, uncle, cousins and sister. So having them with me to not lose all communication helped me out and looking back on it now I guess I had it pretty good. The cultural shock came from how I was treated. Everywhere we went, especially in Croatia, they treated us differently because they could tell that I was American. My cousins and I actually got kicked out of a couple stores in Croatia after walking in and saying hello. Maybe they were just having a bad day or they had some pretty bad stereotypes against Americans and were not going to change it, and I am also pretty confident it is not a rude thing to do anywhere. So dealing with that on top of the language barrier times were getting a little weird. That was right around two weeks of being away from home and the Honeymoon phase of my trip definitely kick started the whole shock of being away from home.

Even though the new media of the time was not that far off from where it is now with Facebook and cell phones, I did not take advantage of them and started missing my parents and friends pretty fast. I have friends that studied abroad so I asked them about their travels. They both told me they were good for about a month and a half to two months and then they started to get home sick and the culture shock set in pretty hard. They both told me they would do it all over again if they had the chance because of all the benefits that came along with it. The things they learned, the people they met, the opportunities they had that many of the people they know did not, and they opportunities it has provided them and the doors it has opened for them in the future. I wish I had the opportunities and means to go through with studying abroad but I guess I will have to settle for short vacations.