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Rachel German gives an account of what you should look out for when you land in the Iberian Peninsula. Beware of meatballs, siestas and dodgy haircuts...
Culture shock - a sense of alienation towards a host cultural environment on the part of a foreign visitor; the difficulty people have adjusting to a new culture that differs markedly from their own.
Every person will have a different experience of culture shock; rarely will people not have any at all.
When you arrive in your destination country, you may be overwhelmed with the feeling of “why did I commit myself to this for a whole year/semester?” Some people don’t get overwhelmed straight away and this is often referred to as the “honeymoon period”. Everything is new and exciting, it’s hot, there are palm trees; yup, everything is marvellous. But sooner or later it will hit. Maybe when you’re trying and failing to sort out registration at the university, or when you can’t get served in a pharmacy due to geriatric queue jumping, or when you find yourself nearly homeless as flats are darned hard to come by. This is sometimes called the “negotiation phase” where excitement fades away, replaced by anxiety, frustration and sometimes depression. Adjustment can sometimes take up to 6 months as you develop routines and what once seemed peculiar or odd becomes reassuringly familiar in its own way.