Stepping onto the plane at Heathrow Airport, I knew I was returning to a place that is vastly different than the city to which I had become accustomed. After spending four months in Cork, Ireland, I was used to walking everywhere, grabbing a hot chicken baguette for lunch, and being surrounded by coffee shops. I wasn’t ready to trade my new lifestyle for Casey’s and drive to the store again.
As I flew over Long Island towards Newark Airport, myself and the girl beside me pointed out how many lights there were shining out in the night. She had just graduated from her master’s program in Scotland and was returning home to New Jersey. She explained that every time she came home to visit she experienced reverse culture shock. While you spend an extended time in another country, you idealize home in your mind, and when you return home things had changed from when you left. It took her time to adjust to the States and then reassimilate when she returned to Scotland.
I knew beforehand that I would go through the same adjustment period but I was not prepared how hard it would hit. Once I was in the car with my mother and uncle, we drove past many stores all crowded together along the highway. Although there were businesses along the road in Ireland, it wasn’t as clustered as home. After spending so much time in the open spaces of Ireland I felt like a stranger in my own country, seeing everything for the first time.
It was difficult readjusting to living with my family; even though I was free to come and go from my own home I still felt that I lost my independence. I became irritable towards my family because they could not understand my desire to be fully on my own. I moved out to a friend’s home and then to campus. It was the best decision I had made since returning. I was excited to return home, to see my friends and young cousins. I missed so much while I was gone and I wanted to make up for it. Yet I realized that I could not make up for the time lost and I just had to reconnect with everyone. By doing so I learned that my loved ones did miss me and though they may not have been able to reach out to me often while gone, they did await my return.
The most difficult obstacle to overcome was seeing flaws in the United States, smaller flaws that I never noticed before. I realized that the wide roads and stripes of land between the roads on the highway are unneeded. The roads take away from the landscape and are harmful for the environment. Back in Ireland, and most of Europe, the roads are just wide enough for the cars and do not detract for the land. Seeing all of these tiny flaws make me wish I was still in Ireland. Even though I missed my friends terribly while there, I cannot help but want to go back to Cork and travel even more.
I fear that my reverse culture shock will only worsen once I return to campus, but I am ready for it. New York, at least upstate New York, is not as quaint as the city I fell in love with. But I have come to learn how to adjust, and I had to adjust quickly. Every time I experienced culture shock – and I still continue to do – I take note at the differences between my life in New York and life in Ireland. I realized that I could combine my experience abroad with my life here. Though I cannot walk to the grocery store and I have to drive to Troy to get a decent scone with tea, I can still eat toast and jam for breakfast or sit at a café while working on schoolwork.
The bright side to coming back to the States is that now I know what I want from the place I live in and that I can live on my own. I can always return to Ireland, even live there if I want to. Living at Siena, and thankfully in the townhouses my final semester, will allow me to somewhat recreate my life in Cork. I know that my experience at University College of Cork will be significantly different from Siena but I am confident that my time away will improve my final semester at Siena. I may still feel like a stranger in my country of birth, but seeing it with new eyes has made me appreciate what I have and want to improve my life in ways I viewed as beneficial overseas.