Return Culture Shock

 1- Small talk with strangers happens in ENGLISH in this country. I am struggling to put together sentences after 6 weeks of speaking as much spanish with as many people as possible.

2. Toilet paper is flushed down the toilet. I am not sure how long it will take for that to be natural again, but every bathroom I have been to in this country, I have been LOOKING for the trash can for toilet paper.

3. SO MANY PEOPLE!!! I understand I am in JFK, one of the busiest airports in America, but it's 5:30 AM, I have not slept a wink and I need to leave the secure area of the airport with ALL my luggage just to go BACK through security with ALL the other New Yorkers who are awake and at the airport at 5:30 AM to go wherever they are headed! I should have stayed in Costa Rica until Monday, much less crowded then. I thought Manuel Antonio was crowded. Phew, it was NOTHING compared to this!

4. Pura Vida is GONE. In Costa Rica, I had very few responsibilities. Now I am staring down the barrel of ALL the work I need to do to leave one school and start at another. Also, I have been catching up on what has been happening outside of Costa Rica (I did watch the news every night over dinner with my host family, but it focused on news of Costa Rica). Um, how many waves of a million different serious diseases are circulating right now? I am masked and wiping EVERY surface I come in contact with. I am hoping this is just travel jitters because the knot in my stomach was GONE for 6 weeks, and I don't really want it back.

5. Stairs are HARD! Most of the buildings and homes I was in in Costa Rica were one story. The only stairs that stand out were the stairs for climbing the mountains in Monteverde (stone stairs so that the path didn't wash away in the rain) and they absolutely killed me. 

6. Remembering that laundry can be done in less than 3 hours if you're motivated. I got to the cousins' house, they offered me the laundry machine, and I thought, "well, I am here for a few more days, so no matter the weather the next few days, the clothes will have time to get dry," and said yes. That's when I remembered machine dryers :)

7. Speaking in ANY language. Someone says thank you, I say "con gusto." Someone hands me something I need, or supplies the word I am trying to say, and I say "gracias." All my "auto pilot" words (the words you say without thinking, the ones your mind has a pavlovian response to, like after someone sneezes, you say the "response" like you're on autopilot.) are in Spanish right now. But also words like after and before are coming out despues and antes. 

8. So in Santo Domingo, EVERY SINGLE HUMAN you crossed paths with said hello in some way. Buenas, Buenas (Dias, Tardes, it was all shortened to Buenas). Yeah, we don't do that here.

9. Light switches are up down here, not side to side. Small thing, but an adjustment I didn't realize I had made when I got there, but here, it is hilariously hard to go back.

10. Costa Rican FOOD! I just want some Casada, but can't find it anywhere! I have typed ALL KINDS of crazy things into google to find a restaurant that has Costa Rican food... (friends, help me out if you know where to find any of the following: Gallapinto, Cas, Casada, good (read healthy) refrescos, banana leaf tamales.) I am getting recipes from my host family, but I am missing the food, BIGTIME.

On the other hand, soaking in a bathtub has been HEAVEN.