Enjoying the Krakow’s square

For my final blog, I want to focus on cultural shock when it comes to visiting countries outside of the United States. To start, the times I felt cultural shock. One prime example of this is the apparent lack of air conditioning. As one of the professors pointed out in Germany, many of the buildings are old and because of their age, the centralized air conditioning that we as Americans are used to have not and perhaps will not be put into the buildings. Another cultural shock that I felt within these countries was the public transportation. Because we had nearly unlimited access to public transport in London, Paris, and Berlin, exploring the city was a breeze. Though it can become crowded, especially the Metro trains in Paris, a crowded train ride beats having to walk miles to get to a destination. Our tickets even got us places on buses and trams, which I enjoyed more than the underground trains because we were able to see more of the cities.

The tram system in Berlin

However, there were certain points in the trips that I thought I would experience the sensation of cultural shock, but it did not occur. The largest example that would apply to the study abroad is the feeling that I would not be able to communicate with others.  In the cities that we visited, it felt as if nearly everyone’s second language was English. The city I feared that I would experience the most language barrier was Krakow, Poland; however, this was the city where I found it the easiest to communicate with the locals and workers! It made me realize how much a second language is so powerful and how grateful I am to be learning American Sign Language as a second language at Ohio State!

The Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus

Overall, my time abroad was unlike something I have experienced before. As one of the professors pointed out at the final group dinner, the entire cohort grew not only as individuals but as a group as well. Even though I have only been apart from them for a few hours, I already miss being in their presence.

The group on a Normandy beach

While in London, the world celebrated Mother’s Day. In my twenty years of living, I have never physically not been with my mom. Though I am lucky enough to be on this study abroad, I find myself missing my family because I have not seen them since the end of spring break. However, this has allowed me to reflect on the experiences of family. I was unable to take photos within the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust section, but a sizable part of their section was about children and families. This made me realize how thankful and grateful I am to have both a safe place to call home and that I still have my mother with me. Within this section of the museum, it was easy to see the sacrifices that mothers had to make throughout the war. Though nowhere comparable to wartimes, my mother has had to make sacrifices to keep her children alive and thriving. Furthermore, viewing the section in the museum about twins made me feel that much more grateful. As a twin, I could never imagine living through something as traumatic as World War II or the Holocaust because there was a high chance of both of us not surviving.

Even in modern times, seeing families in the “wild” has been an interesting experience. To compare to the United States, families are more similar than I thought they would be. Little kids still try to run away from grabbing their father’s hands, mothers still comfort their child after falling on the ground, and kids are still making up new words to describe what they found on TikTok. However, there is a sense that everything is calmer, in a way. Rarely have I heard talk about a quiet chat volume level and the kids, though they can be loud, have slightly more respect to other people. I found it interesting because it shows what ideals are taught in certain countries. Something different about this dynamic was the fact that school aged children are going on a cross country ferry with only a few chaperones. I would never be able to fathom something like this in the United States!