Reverse Culture Shock

My family and I recently made a trip back to the US for my brothers wedding (which was LOVELY by the way).  My young daughter and I flew in a few days early since school has started here in Germany and it is compulsory for children to attend we wanted to minimise the amount my two boys (2nd and 4th class) would miss since we required permission from the principle.

I had read about "reverse culture shock" before and admittedly thought it was a bit strange.  After all, it's your home country, and in my case I am going from one first world western country to another.  And yet... I had some shocks.

What I notice most stepping of the plane and walking through the airport to collect my luggage was-big shocker here: everyone spoke English.  Frankly, it was quite overwhelming.  I felt like my brain was being overloaded because instead of others speech being background noise that I could only understand if I tried hard to pay attention, I could understand everyone!  It was  stressful.  I'm sure jet-lag and lack of sleep wasn't helping, but it did continue for most of the time I was in the US.  I was honestly surprised-especially because I'm an extrovert and I thought I would mostly be happy to be back to my native tongue.  Interestingly, I have wonderful friends who are missionaries in Tonga and the husband is an extrovert like myself and he had the same feeling when he returns to US soil...the wife however likes being able to understand those around her.  Us crazy extroverts.

The other thing that bowled me over was the grocery stores.  The day after I arrived my mother and I went out, on the way back from our errand my father called to mention there was no milk at home (I was staying with them) so she said we could stop by the grocery store and get some.  My daughter fell asleep in her carseat so I offered to run into the store and get the milk (I also wanted some blue diamond wasabi Almonds and Canadian mints that I had missed in Germany).  Oh my...the store was enormous!  I couldn't find what I was looking for (well I had been there before and remembered where the milk was, but the almonds and mints had me stumped) I actually had to ask two separate employees for help before gathering my items.  As I was in the checkout line my mother called me to see if I was okay since it had been so very long.  Frankly, I think she thought she would have to send in a search party.  I guess I didn't notice when I moved to Germany that the grocery stores were so much smaller, because in the early months I was just so overwhelmed by the language and product differences that I didn't take that into account. When I told my husband, he teased me a bit, but I feel compelled to mention that he never set foot in a grocery store when he was in the US so I don't think his opinion is fair.

I'm sure everyone has different experiences with culture shock/reverse culture shock, these were merely the two that struck me the most.