A lot of people always talk about the shock upon your arrival abroad but for me, I had the opposite effect. Upon arrival for my Maymester, I immediately got myself involved with my group as quickly as possible and started adventuring. Though the first night was difficult because of jetlag and the overall excitement of being in a different country, I experienced more of a shock upon arrival back into the States than anything. Our trip did not feel like it was nearing the end until the last night when we had our farewell dinner. Emotions were running wild I did not know if I was happy or sad or all of the above. Most of my goodbyes were held in the airport the following morning and as I boarded my flight reality started to set in. When I got back to the States, I felt really overwhelmed and sad that my trip was over. I was just starting to get close to a fantastic group of people and submerse myself into a completely different culture. The week following getting home, all I could think about was how soon can I go back and how soon can I travel to see my friends? I related Everything I did back to my trip, and how it could not even compare. On top of this, I was trying to combat my jetlag and was sleeping for what felt like my entire day. In order to overcome this, I surrounded myself with things that were comforting before like working out and keeping myself busy throughout the day. My experience with reverse culture shock made me realize how fortunate I was to go on this trip and how lucky I am to have all these incredible memories to take with me in life.
