Wow.
I’ve heard so many others talk about it. I watched YouTube video of people sharing their experience with it. I even had to take a mini quiz on it, but I never realized how real it was until I arrived here. It’s real, so real. What am I talking about?
Culture shock.
I was prepared for England to be completely different from the U.S., and I was prepared for it to be similar to the U.S., but not for it to be similar in different ways! Let me explain. There are four phases to culture shock: honeymoon, anxiety, adjustment, acceptance.
It was great at first. It was 6 a.m. The plane was soaring above the clouds, and small flecks of golden light gradually began to appear beneath me: land, buildings, streetlights, cities! With my nose and hands pressed against the cold window, I could nearly see the sun stretching a single ray of light over the world cradling it, as if to gently say, “Wake up now, you have some visitors.” Then, the honeymoon phase was over.
Me, and the three other girls from Bloomsburg University stood for over an hour in the line to get our passports stamped, got separated and lost in the airport, got a cab driver so mad that he left us to pick someone else up, and spent three hours lugging AT LEAST 80 pounds of luggage around before we finally found transportation to the university, or “uni” as they call it here. At the student service center, we each picked up our key card and fob. The fob, a little small, rounded piece of plastic that gives entry to something, got us through the door of our own buildings. The key card granted us access to the floor on which our room was, and of course, our room itself which is approximately half the size of a regular dorm room size in the U.S. We’re all living in separate buildings, but no one is more than a 5-minute walk from each other.
After dropping our luggage off, we grabbed a bite to eat at the SU Bar. Yep, they have a bar on campus. ON CAMPUS! The entire backwall has shelf after shelf of just alcohol. I’ve heard that the floor beneath is a night club. It feels so… illegal, but it’s not because the drinking age is 18 here.
When we finished eating, we headed down town to buy some bedding and other housing essentials. The bedding here is so similar and different at the same time. The bedding consists of a fitted sheet, a duvet (the “comforter”), and a piece of fabric that goes over the duvet like a sleeping bag. The fabric that goes over the duvet is the part that has an assortment of colors and designs that people have the option of choosing from.
After we settled that, we headed to Tesco. Tesco is like a Super Walmart but smaller… and more emphasis on the food rather than everything else. It was the same deal here; everything was similar and different at the same time. Food is food wherever you go, and it was the same type of food mainly except that it was all packaged so differently. Milk did not have 1% or 2% marked on the top and the plastic used to hold it even had a slightly different shape and size dimension to it. Everything was labeled with a brand that I’ve never heard of before. It also felt strange because I’m now old enough to buy alcohol even though my 21st birthday isn’t until next month. I didn’t though, because I forgot my ID in my room… It was really disappointing. The strange thing is that, because I forgot my ID, we couldn’t even buy a pack of silverware containing a butter knife. A butter knife! It’s a hazard apparently.
The next day, we had orientation. There are exchange students here from 27 different countries. Out of 139 exchange students this semester here at Essex, 27 were from America! The second largest group of exchange students consisted of 25 individuals from China. The country with the third most number of people was Canada with 15. The fourth was Australia with 7. Later in the day, there was a social meet and greet. I was promised pizza, so I showed up. There wasn’t just pizza though. Oh no. There was also red and white wine for everyone to drink. I met students from literally all over the world. Some were from China, Morocco, Canada and others from Puerto Rico, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy. The list goes on! I didn’t even meet a quarter of the exchange students here yet!
I think one of the strangest things though so far might just be the students who are not foreigners. The population on this campus is SO diverse. America is made of immigrants, but, the parts that I’ve seen of the U.S., are not nearly as diverse as here on campus. I was told that London is even more so.
I’m expecting a bit more culture shock before I can finally learn to adjust and accept this culture. It’s exciting to think what surprises tomorrow has in store for me to experience.
Tip of the day: When situations seem like they’re too much to handle, just take a deep breath. Just because something is different does NOT mean that it is wrong. It’s just something that may take a little getting used to!