Culture Shock - not to be confused with Culture Club

I used to think a week was 7 days. Now, as time flashes forward at a rate I care not to discuss (even though inadvertently I just did), I'm convinced a week is somehow less than 7 days, 168 hours....and I'm too lazy to get out the calculator to figure out seconds.


Anyhow, in exactly one week I'll be on a plane to Rome. Starting a travel adventure I've been planning since March of last year.

As you've undoubtedly noticed I have some mixed feelings about this trip.  I don't doubt for one minute that I'll get tired at some point and annoyed with people and tired and annoyed. It's just how travel goes.  There's a condition called Culture Shock that happens when you travel to unknown areas. And Culture Shock (not sure if it should be capital or not, but I'm making it so...) can add a whole new set of emotions to travel.

I've traveled before. I know this routine. I know, seemingly, what to expect. And yet, every time I travel I do experience some culture shock.  I've been to Rome - granted 28 years ago - which doesn't seem right and makes me question whether a year still have 365 days in it (see paragraph one). I remember well the culture shock I experienced the first time I stepped foot in Saudi Arabia.

And I suspect there was some culture shock I experienced when going to TASIS for the first time.

I anticipate my first step off the plane in Rome, a relatively unfamiliar place for me, will make me feel a bit off balance. Everything familiar will be left behind the moment I step on that plane in Chicago.  The language I spoke fluently, the roads, the customs, the mannerisms, etc. All the subcultures that I kept neatly in my back pocket will no longer apply. A new set of "rules", "customs", and "mannerisms" await me.

I have years of traveling under my belt. I used to be adventurous and now I feel a bit too "closed in" to really get the experience I want from Rome, and the other ports. But mostly Rome. I am wired with anxiety and I really needed to get a grip on it before my time in Rome passes.
I've heard culture shock compared to Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz. She basically arrives in munchkin town and has suddenly realized she ain't in Kansas anymore.  The little people around her look different, talk different, and have different customs. She has to rely on the "locals" to help guide her to where she needs to go....down the Yellow Brick Road. She doesn't know what's down that road, but trusts that the locals mean her no harm. Along the way she meets some "other" locals and eventually she begins to have a new understanding of herself and her life at home.  To get "home" she must deal with talking lions, men made of straw, lions and witches. 

Not all that different from visiting a new country when you stop to think about it.
I read this recently about culture shock, "Our first steps into an unfamiliar place can jar us emotionally like a plunge into an icy lake shocks us physically. We don't know where we're going. We might feel vulnerable, or fatigue from the journey, or frustrated by a language barrier. These things all glob together into what I commonly call "culture shock."

Dead on. I think culture shock becomes part of the experience. It becomes, almost, the reason for the experience.  It has a negative connotation to it, but does it have to be negative? I don't think so. I think that this "plunge into an icy lake" could be what this girl needs to get herself back a little.

Travel amplifies some emotions. There's no doubt about that. Which emotions are going to rear their ugly head has yet to be seen. But like Dorothy, I'd like to take the opportunity to interact with these locals, learn from them, experience Rome (and the other ports) through them. And whether I come to the surface sputtering water from the icy lake, I will have experienced being in that lake.