Enter: Culture Shock

Like most negative emotions I’ve processed in my life, I’m all for getting them out of my system in one fell swoop. Why diddle-daddle for a week as fun-loving 7th grader about not getting straight A’s when one solid emotional breakdown can get it all out! That being said, I managed to purge all cultural sensations associated with returning from study abroad in my 24-hour trip back to the United States. To be fair, living out of a backpack for almost two months was an easy way to re-embrace my more traditional American lifestyle, which includes a consistent roof over my head and lack of creepy French nudists trying to get me to couch surf with them.

Thanks to quality travel provider CheapoAir (need I say more?) Michael and I flew back on Sun Country airlines, the transatlantic equivalent of Southwest. 12 hours. 1980s flight decor. No in-flight movies. Luckily, we were in a shoddy enough plane that we had to make an unscheduled refuel in Gander, Canada. If your first thought was “What the hell is a Gander?” you certainly are not alone. The town Gander was essentially created as an aviation base during WWII, and as a result, our pitstop in the Gander airport allowed us to 100% of the town’s tourist attractions, including the Gander aviation museum which took the form of a 1981 mural adjacent to the airport’s cafeteria. Nothing screams historical relevance like the smell of mass produced meat loaf.

But my “HOLY SHIT NORTH AMERICA” moment didn’t hit until we made our way to our second (this time scheduled) stop in Minneapolis. With six hours until our flight to LAX, what did Michael and I do? Take the subway to the Mall of America of course! I must say, even in the journey home, I’m impressed we managed to take advantage of time in the city. Anyway, the subway was really more of glorified trolly car but it took us to the mall in about ten minutes flat. Nobody even checked our ticket to get on! The people of the Midwest are so trusting. And the ride was so pleasant! Based upon this experience alone, I’ve concluded the Midwest devoid of unpleasantness, crime, and unhappiness.

Anyway, back to the mall. Now, if you didn’t already know, everything in Europe is old. Aging, small, ancient and tiny. Redundancy added for dramatic effect. And well, the Mall of the America is everything that Europe isn’t. The mall was HUGE, the steps on the escalators were OVERSIZED, Dora the Explorer’s face plastered to a ten story indoor ferris wheel was GIANT, the idealogical presence of American consumerism was OMNIPRESENT, and the tourists that inhabited the hundreds of stores in the mall… well, you get the picture.

I don’t remember the last time I uttered the words “overwhelmed” and “overstimulated” so frequently and in such rapid succession but considering I had never experience a seizure or epileptic fit before, I thought my need to orally process the plus-sized stimuli was fair. Michael, who had only been gone less than two months, didn’t seem to understand my incessant need to self-diaognose my feelings. Damnit, I was overwhelmed and I was going to make it my elitist mission to blame the Mall of America for destroying my post-Euro bliss.

Eventually, my instinctual need to consume large servings of Mexican food overcame my idealogical aversion to the American lifestyle, and we found our way to my first serving of Chipotle in six months. We took our aluminum wrapped vessels of faux-Mexican-goodness to a table overlooking the Nickelodeon theme park in the middle of the mall. As the sweet, sweet taste of chicken and pico de gaello touched my tastebuds, my thoughts on coming back to my homeland began to shift. Sure, the Mall of America (and America in general) might be a bastion of excess and commercialism. Yes, it may have no concept of portion control. And of course it lacks the history and refinement of Europe’s crown histories, all of which hold a gateway to glory days past.

But riddle me this reader: where else in Europe could I find a delectable burrito the size of my face for less than seven bucks? My point exactly.