Saturday, September 20, 2008

The America Experience

I've been meaning to write about several recent experiences and I have been forgetting lately until another one happened to me today. And I made it a priority that I write about this.

For the past month now I have had problems...things that trip me up from time to time.

Here are a few examples:

I saw a building way down the end of the road today and I thought to myself 'that building is in the wrong place' and visualized where it "should have" been. The image imagined was a similar building in Godoy Cruz, Mendoza, Argentina. It was strange to catch myself.

I was sitting on my friend's couch and we were talking about food and I started talking about Mendocinian beef and I said "Hey I know of a good place to go eat"  I again visualized the place in Mendoza, caught myself and finished saying "Rosa's, which is a little Mexican chain restaurant here in Waco. What a let down.

One morning I woke up planning my day as I had so many times before in Mendoza (literally I visualized my schedule every morning)...I would go to the city and walk around the plazas and the shops. Of course I would then catch myself thinking that would be one heck of a day trip...

Another day I had a major chocolate craving and I thought to myslef that I would go to a 'local place' on Las Heras, visualizaing it the entire time..which always ends up the same...the realization that I am not there anymore.


Sometimes it gets really annoying to me and upsets me. It's weird the upset feeling is part annoyance that I can't things staraight (Ironic huh?) and other part "homesicking," like I want to return...

I am not sure why this is happening to me, was it because it was my first time abroad? Was it because I had such an amazing time ther? Was it becuase I had (and still do) such an amazing family there? Was it becuase I learned so much? Was it because the amount of time I was there? Or was it a combination of it all?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's no rhyme or reason. Uganda was my second time out, and I had sleepy and cranky culture shock being there and dreamy culture shock coming home. The cause probably has something to do with how well you assimilated and with the similarities between home and there.

Uganda seems like another life now. I wish I still had culture shock . . .