Re-entry shock

For people who live in another country or culture for a while and then return home, there's a thing called "re-entry shock."

If you've been gone long enough that you've in any way adapted to another culture and/or language, then you've begun to think different or operate differently. Thus, returning home is actually going through culture shock all over again, but it's more unsettling because it's your home where you're supposed to feel most comfortable.

When we took classes to prepare us for living overseas, we of course studied culture shock and re-entry shock. However, everyone experiences different discomforts, so the class was mostly about generalities. So, even though you think you're prepared for the discomforts, you're still "shocked" about the specific things that bother you.

You can't prepare for surprise.

Last year, we went home for Christmas for several weeks. We had only been gone about a year, so we didn't think returning to the United States would involve any discomforts. All we could think about was what we had missed over the past year: chiles rellenos, live TV, English radio stations, buffalo wings, Starbucks coffee that doesn't cost $10, moms' homecooking, our cat and, oh yeah, our families.

What could there be that would shock us?

Our insurance coverage for living overseas doesn't include dental. So we hadn't had a cleaning in over a year. Being that we work for a nonprofit, we also don't have much extra spending money for things like cleanings, since we spent most of it on our plane tickets to go home. When we heard on the radio that a local dental care center would offer free services to anyone in the community between 8 a.m. and noon one day, it seemed like a great idea to take advantage of this.

We got up at 6 a.m., groggily threw on some clothes, ate a couple of granola bars and drove in the pre-dawn light across town to the clinic, thinking we could beat the crowd. As my husband eased our borrowed car into the parking lot, we were dismayed to see a line of people wrapped around three sides of the building.

I am not a morning person. Neither is my husband. We stood in frozen silence, trying not to let our teeth chatter too loudly, leaning close to one another for warmth as we joined the back of the line.

Apparently, everyone else in line were morning people.

All around us, people were talking up a storm, and doing it loudly. From every side, it seemed, we were bombarded with inane conversation. Each person seemed to feel it necessary to vocalize the stream-of-consciousness thoughts in their heads. Some turned to face behind them in the line, hoping to engage the next person in conversation about the cold, the line, whether the nearest gas station had good coffee, the cold and the line.

As more people streamed through the parking lot to join the lengthening queue, they had to ask the same questions that the people in front of them had asked when THEY joined the line: How long had we been here? When would they open the doors to the clinic? Do you think everyone will be served or is there a cutoff? I heard they only take the first 100 people. How many people do you think are in line already?

I was ready to slap someone. It felt like my brain was going to explode. I couldn't shut out the voices and what they were saying. No matter how hard I tried to drift off into my own thoughts, the bombardment of conversation seemed to batter my head.

Suddenly, I realized something. For a year, I'd been surrounded by people in every public place who were speaking German and Swiss-German. Sometimes they spoke French; occasionally it was Italian. Even the random Arabic or Ukrainian. And there had been something blissfully peaceful about not being able to understand any of these languages. It meant that on a train, a subway car, a sidewalk, a grocery line, at a restaurant table, or strolling around a tourism site, the voices around me had been nothing more than a background buzz, leaving me plenty of space for my own meandering thoughts.

For a year, I'd experienced the peace and quiet of my own inner world because I couldn't understand the conversations around me. And now, I no longer had the ability to tune out other conversations.  It was like I was Supergirl; I had super-hearing and could hear every one of the 500,000 people in the city. My brain seemed to latch onto every English word spoken within a 10-mile radius.

My husband was having the same experience. No matter how enticing was the thought of free dental care, after only 30 minutes we looked at one another and non-verbally agreed it was time to get the heck out of here. We couldn't take it. One more year with dirty teeth was worth it to get away from all the voices butting up against our heads.

This is re-entry shock. You don't know what it'll be. You can't prepare yourself. It'll shock you.

Christmas markets

One thing I look forward to every year in Germany and Switzerland are the Christmas markets.

Christmas seems fairly understated here compared to in America -- and I like that. Our family doesn't have TV or radios here, and we don't get a newspaper or even go shopping very much. So commercials and advertising aren't crammed down our throats throughout the holidays in Europe, which is a very nice change of pace.

I suppose the Christmas markets that take place in almost every village, town and city in Germany, Switzerland and Austria would be this culture's version of commercializing the Advent season. It just seems more tasteful here, somehow.

Last year was my first Christmas in Europe, and due to inclement weather, I only got to visit the market in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This year, I'm hitting four markets. I've been to Heidelberg and Frankfurt so far. Basel is this weekend.

Here are a few photos of the experiences:

These are called "schneeballen," or snow balls. They're pie dough deep fried and covered in all kinds of toppings. Here's how they're made: http://rileyquinnauthor.blogspot.com/2010/10/rothenburg-schneeballen.html.

Chickens at midnight

The phone rang, and when I answered it, a voice said, "The Chicken Mother say you come at midnight, and come alone."

It sounds like the opening to a mystery or mob movie, or a weird dream I might have. But it actually happened.

One of the people in the English class I teach each week is named Harald. He patches together a variety of odd jobs. Two weeks ago he was telling me about one of them, in which he spends 1-2 hours in the middle of the night at a nearby farm helping to move sleeping chickens into crates and onto a truck so they can be sent off to slaughter; the meat is then prepared and packaged for a chain of Swiss grocery stores.

He mentioned how the farmer, who was a woman, would serve cake, fruit and drinks to all her workers following each night's work. I thought it was cute that, not knowing an English word for a female farmer, he kept calling her "The Chicken Mother."

"It pay very good," he added. "One hundred Swiss Francs an hour!"

My ears perked up. That's about 90 or 95 USD. We could certainly use 100 bucks every couple of weeks. And then there's the fact that I secretly harbor a romantic fascination with farm and ranch work, and always wished I could quit my career just for a summer to work on a ranch or farm to see what it would be like

"Do they need any extra hands?" I asked Harald.

I remembered one of my coworkers has also been looking for ways to earn a few extra bucks, so I added that I had a friend who might be interested in this job, too. He said he would find out.

A week later he called our flat and, in his limited English, said, "The Chicken Mother say you come at midnight, and come alone." The "come alone" part indicated that they only needed one additional person, so I would have to leave my friend behind. Still, I had to laugh at the mafia-like way he had used to tell me this.

At 11:30 p.m. the next day, I met Harald in front of an enormous, long building, about a football field (American football) in width and length. Two university-aged girls and three Swiss men in their 20s or 30s waited there, as well. They showed me where to get gloves and a mask to cover my nose and mouth.

After everyone was suited up, we were led into a small room where we had to step in a pan of something soapy they said was disinfectant. Then we went through a door into the massive building.

There were no lights on, but the full moonlight filtered inside. My jaw hung open as I surveyed the gently undulating carpet of white chickens covering every square inch of the vast floor. I have never seen so many animals in one place in my entire life. Harald said there were 10,000 chickens in this room.

"We have to move 5,092 chickens tonight," he said.  I counted how many of us there were: seven. Seven of us were going to crate up more than 5,000 chickens in one night?

We carefully stepped between the drowsy chickens that were settled quietly on the floor. In the dark, the guys began hauling in large, rectangular, plastic crates, each with a sliding opening on the top. Harald explained that we had to get 15 chickens in each crate. I watched as the girls laid the crates flat, sat on one end and just started grabbing the chickens nearest to them, stuffing them in the holes in the crates.

I followed suit, counting out loud as I grabbed the warm, soft chickens around their wings to prevent them from flapping. I laid them in the crate, shoving them to either edge to make room for more chickens through the opening.

The chickens must have been pretty groggy because they only protested a little bit, and most didn't even bother to move as we worked our way deeper into the building, shuffling through the soft, mulchy floor.

It was only about 10 minutes before my back became so sore that I was afraid it would go into spasms. Even though I exercise four to five times a week, my legs began trembling from the intensity of this work, and the rapid movements of dipping down to grab a chicken and swinging it around to the crate beside me was making me dizzy. As I got shakier, I worried that I couldn't do this after all. But 10 minutes later, I stopped feeling the pain in my back and learned to sit on the crate instead of trying to squat and bend over.

We worked as fast as we could in the dark. As the crates were filled and closed, the guys would stack them onto a forklift, which carried them out of the chicken house and to a tractor trailer parked outside. Then the forklift would come back with more empty crates, and the guys would drag them toward us as we went further and further into the building.

Sweat was running down my face and in my eyes; I  tasted salt on my lip. I ignored it and kept going.

I rather enjoyed the work -- it was like getting paid to do aerobic exercise for an hour, and also to get to handle animals, which I always like (even though we were sending them to their deaths).

During the entire hour, story plotlines about the chickens ran around in my head.

I imagined the chickens' fears as they were packed into crates; I wondered whether we were separating family members, and what the chickens who were in the far end of the warehouse thought about all the noise and commotion on our end. I also thought to myself that if the chickens weren't so docile -- if they decided to revolt en masse -- there would be no way we could finish crating them up. But they didn't. They just calmly squatted in the mulch until we grabbed them.

Before I knew it, we were done. I looked around and couldn't believe that we were halfway down the huge room, and that behind us the entire floor was empty.

Out in the air, away from the stench of chicken and chicken poop, I noticed a few chickens had had accidents on my sweatshirt and torn, old jeans. Yuck. We washed up at a big sink and then were led into a makeshift kitchen area where a table had been set up with drinks, a bowl of muesli and yogurt, a home-made chocolate quick bread, a bowl of clementines, cookies and rolls and butter. I had eaten a pretty big dinner in anticipation of the work so I just peeled a clementine and listened to everyone talking in Swiss German.

The "Chicken Mother" -- a rather young woman -- invited me to come again to crate up the remaining 5,000 chickens, and to bring my friend if she still wanted to come with me. Then the lady had us each sign a piece of paper and handed us a 100-Franc bill. It was about 1:15 a.m. when I drove home.

Boxing up 5,000 chickens had only taken 60 minutes.

That was my first-ever farm work experience, and I have to say it was pretty interesting and fun. It's a great workout; it only takes an hour and, fortunately, I am a night owl, so doing it at midnight is not a problem for me.

And, I will never look at that package of chicken breasts in the store the same way again.

Daytrip heaven

One of the best things about living in Switzerland is its central location in Europe (8 hours in any direction to any major European city) as well as its small size. On a $50 tank of gas, we can drive almost from one end of the country to the other and back in a day (we're Americans, we don't mind the driving).

That allows you to take a leisurely Saturday to see things like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

Yep, being landlocked in the center of Western Europe is not so bad at all.

Let them eat cake!

Before we moved to Switzerland, I was obsessed with making Amish Friendship Bread. I love sweet, quick breads -- banana chocolate chip bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, pineapple coconut bread, chocolate cherry bread and my new obsession, banana coconut bread.

I whipped up a yeast starter for the Amish Friendship Bread a few weeks ago and baked a couple loaves of pineapple coconut bread for new friends we've made here. I thought it would be fun to share a little American dessert tradition.

When I presented them the foil-wrapped loaf with the Sharpie label reading, "Ananas-Cocos," I said proudly, "This is pineapple coconut Amish Friendship Bread."

Smiling happily, they paused over the label, then asked, "It's pineapple BREAD?"

"Yeah, it's a popular kind of bread that people make in the States and give to friends."

"So, it's sweet or ...?" they continued, in growing confusion. "Do you make sandwiches from it?"

"No, no," I quickly corrected, surprised. "You eat it with coffee or for a snack."

"OH, so it's cake!" they replied.

"It's actually bre--, uh, yeah, it's cake."

This is how I stopped to reflect that in America, we call a dessert "bread" if it's shaped in a loaf (unless it's "pound cake"); if it's a rectangle in a pan, it's "cake" and if it's in a round dish, cut into triangles, it's "pie."

Over here, it is much simpler. Everything is just cake.

Why Americans and Europeans vacation differently

Now that we've been here for a while, I've been studying the differences between how Americans and Europeans vacation. I am not sure I fully understand all the factors, but from what Swiss and German people have explained to me, this is what I have seen and heard so far:

1. First off, the minimum amount of vacation time that Europeans are given is usually 3 weeks. Even if you just started a new job, you can expect to begin at the company with 3 weeks of vacation. The longer you work there, the more you earn. It's very common to have 5 weeks of vacation that you are allowed to take.

2. Unlike Americans, they will take it all at once. During the summer, usually in August, they'll just leave for an entire three weeks. Sometimes in August it actually feels like the apocalypse has occurred, or that you're in the beginning of the movie 28 Days Later. Post offices, restaurants and businesses will be shuttered up and locked. On July 31, it's a good idea to have lots of toilet paper stored, a vegetable garden you can eat out of, and probably a cow or a goat for milk, or you might run out of household necessities, as well as starve, before they all come back.

3. The other thing is that they will go just one place and spend the entire three weeks there, or divide up their time between maybe two locations. So, they'll rent a cabin on a lake or in the mountains or something and just stay put. They might go out during the days and hike or mountain climb or fish or whatever, but they're going back to the same hotel or cabin or RV or their relative's house every night. The idea of moving from hotel to hotel and from city to city every few days, like Americans do when we're in Europe, seems to exhaust them. It is not their idea of a holiday. It's like they think a vacation is for rest or something. Whatever.

4. Now, obviously, taking more days in a row of your vacation makes for a more expensive vacation. That is why Americans will take just two or three days at a time, or if we're really lucky, a whole week -- we blow our limited travel budget on that long weekend and have to scrimp and save up for two or three months (or a year) before we can afford another three-day weekend trip. Europeans are committed to their three weeks, and seem to find ways to offset the cost.

5. The other thing is that since Europeans LIVE in Europe, it's not like they have this pressure to see as much as they can over a limited period of time. Therefore, they might go back to the same vacation place year after year after year. They know they can always go to Berlin or London or Rome next year.

OK, so with all that as context, Europeans, and especially the Swiss, think American tourists are insane. They don't understand some basic differences:

1. We don't get 3 weeks of vacation. Heck, we're lucky if we get a whole week. Even if we have 3 weeks, we usually aren't allowed by our jobs to take that much time off in a row or else our company will collapse without us. Our bosses make us talk to all our other fellow employees to coordinate our vacations so that somebody is there every day of the year, so that the lights are on and the doors are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, especially Christmas and Thanksgiving. In Europe, the entire restaurant or grocery store is closed for 3 weeks and everyone is gone. For whatever reason, there is no looting.

2. The price of the airline ticket just to get to Europe is equal to the cost of a human kidney. Europeans don't have that expense.

3. If we are going to sell our kidney to afford a freaking plane ticket, we better make the trip worth it. Therefore, we are going to see a different country every day; maybe two countries in one day.

4. America is big. It is nothing to drive 16 hours in a day to go skiing and then drive 16 hours back two days later. So we think it's a fantastic idea to ride a train 4 hours from Paris to Zurich and then, the evening after seeing Zurich, to catch the 8-hour train ride for Rome, continuing like this for one or two weeks.

Europeans think that is insane. You can cross the entire country of Switzerland in three hours. So, for a Swiss person, the idea of driving even 30 minutes somewhere on a Saturday is exhausting, let alone driving the 6 hours from Zurich to Paris for a two-week vacation. If you are a Swiss person going a distance of six hours, you are going to stop and spend the night three times on the way to break it up into manageable two-hour chunks of driving.

And that's why Americans and Europeans vacation differently.

The Stages of Culture Shock

Having been here about 18 months, I would like to give a concrete example of the Stages of Culture Shock.

Directly across the street from my office window is the village church. Every village church has a steeple and bells that mark every quarter hour, every half hour and every hour. Twice a day, these bells (plural) clang continuously at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., for at least one minute.

It feels like an hour. It's so loud that all phone calls or Skype meetings (or YouTube videos) must come to a screeching halt until said bells are done.

When I first arrived in this quaint little rural village, I was enchanted by this church and its lovely European bells.

Now, not so much.

Culture Shock Stage 1: The Honeymoon. 
Everything in the Honeymoon Stage is new, fresh and exciting. Every experience is rich and euphoric. You feel that you could enjoy these things forever.

In my first week at my new office in Switzerland, at precisely 11 a.m., the bells begin their sweet music. I stop work on my computer and rush to the window, throwing it open to get the full effect of the pure, pealing sounds. I lean out with my Canon Digital ELPH to record video of this authentic Swiss experience and post it to my blog for all my friends and family at home so they can share in my enthusiasm for its novelty and charm. 

Culture Shock Stage 2: Distress 
What at first seemed new and exciting becomes increasingly irritating and confusing.

At 6 p.m. during my third month at my office in Switzerland, I am in the middle of a video call with a news source in Russia. It's tough enough to understand through his accent over the bad connection. But now, the bells burst into an explosion of seemingly discordant clanging.

Russian guy: "What is going (unintelligible) there?"

Me: "Uh, sorry, hold on," I say, frantically trying to lower the volume on my microphone and leaning over to close the open window.

Me: "THERE'S A CHURCH ACROSS THE STREET," I shout at the computer.

Russian guy: "WHA --" he yells back, and I can hear the clanging reverberating from his computer speakers and back into my mine.

Me: "IT'S A CHURCH. ACROSS THE STREET," I try to explain. I think the bells might be triggering a migraine.

Russian guy: "THAT'S A (garbled) CHURCH?"

Me: "YES, CHURCH BELLS. IF YOU COULD WAIT JUST A MOMENT..." I beg.

Russian guy: "I (garbled static because of too much noise going into my microphone) HEAR YOU--(static)." 

Culture Shock Stage 3: Withdrawal 
You refuse to accept what is new and different in the culture. You're frustrated, irritable, and feel hostile to the place and the people. 

It's 11 a.m., and I'm working hard on a complicated article, humming to songs on iTunes. When the steeple bells begin their shrill, mocking laughter at me, I slam the window shut and crank up the computer speakers as loud as they will go, singing off-key at the top of my lungs. When that doesn't  work, I plug my ears and yell, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU. I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

(OK, I don't actually do that. But I feel like it.) I go downstairs to get a coffee and wait it out.

If there were a hunchback, there is nowhere he could run that I would not find him.

Culture Shock Stage 4: Adjustment 
You learn to accept the culture, and your negative feelings toward the differences become more positive.

A friend is visiting Switzerland and stops by my office to see where I work. We're sharing coffee at my desk when the steeple clock strikes 11 a.m., and the daily musical announcement of the time begins.

Friend: "THAT IS SOOOO COOL," she enthuses in a loud voice to get above the resonating metal striking metal. "DO YOU GET TO HEAR THAT EVERY DAY?"

Me: "YEAH," I affirm, hesitant. "DON'T YOU THINK IT'S LOUD?"

Friend: "I GUESS SO. BUT IT'S SOOOO EUROPEAN!"

Me: "IT'S KIND OF A NUISANCE WHEN I'M ON THE PHONE, THOUGH," I feel it necessary to point out.

Friend: "SURE. BUT, IT'S EUROPE, YOU KNOW?"

Me: "AND I DON'T NEED TO WEAR A WATCH ANYMORE." 

Culture Shock Stage 5: Acceptance
You feel at home and may even adopt some of the country's customs.

During a video call at 6 p.m. with U.S. based office team back home, they suddenly stop.

Coworker: "Are those church bells going off?"

Me: "What?" I ask, confused. Then I realize I hadn't noticed the steeple bells across the street this time. "Oh, sorry about that. They do that every day at 11 in the morning and 6 in the evening. Let me turn the volume down."

Coworker: "That's pretty neat. A Swiss church right across the street!"

Coworker 2: "I'd love to hear that every so often. I sure miss those European churches."

Me: "I will, too," I say, knowing my contract here won't last forever.