Back in the US

I am back in the US! And more to the point, I am back in Arizona. I spent several days visiting family in Ohio, which was a good way to reenter the country. You can not get a more typical stereotypical American experience than spending time in a small midwestern town. Especially one where you are seemingly related to like a quarter of the people, and everyone knows everyone else. Following this, we drove across the country to end up back her in Flagstaff. It was nice to drive across such a large swath of the country and see some of the difference between the US and Germany. The size, first and foremost. It is easy to forget how enormous this country really is. A 28 hour drive from Konstanz would probably put you in Russia somewhere.

At the orientation session back in January, we were warned that upon our return to the United States we would likely experience reverse culture shock. This meaning that we would have acclimated to our host cultures, and returning to the US would be a shock somewhat similar to our arrival in foreign lands. Having come back to the US, I can not say that I experienced this. Everything just seems perfectly again. I do however notice a lot of things that are very distinctly America. For example, Germans are very reserved compared to Americans. We are constantly greeting people and having loud conversations with people we barely know. That is something that doesn't really seem to happen over there.

It is kind of odd being back in the US, because it almost feels like my time if Konstanz was a long time ago. This is in spite of the fact that it was only a week and a half ago. Maybe because it has been so busy, or maybe it is because I returned to the same job I had before I left immediately upon my return to Flag. Either way, it is an experience that I am glad I had and will likely only get to do once.