Coming back from my year abroad I was looking forward to catching up with my family and friends, going to big Tesco, and eating my grandma’s renowned Sunday roast every weekend, but it turns out it wasn’t as easy as getting on the plane and waving goodbye to the country that had been my home for almost an entire year, it took me a while to readjust to being back on home turf.
Reverse culture shock
Everyone will tell you about the culture shock of arriving in a new country at the start of your year abroad, but people sometimes fail to mention the reverse culture shock when you return to your home country. Now that you’ve adapted to the new and very different way of life in your host country, it’s hard to readjust back to how you used to live before.
For me, I found that the most noticeable change was the English mealtimes compared to the Spanish. In Spain, they eat lunch at around 15:00 and dinner at around 22:00, so, as you can imagine it was quite a shock when my family called me down for dinner at 6 pm…
As well as this, I found that the Spanish culture is a LOT more laid back than English culture, especially in terms of punctuality, English people are way more concerned about being on time whereas Spaniards don’t mind too much about being a few minutes late in general.
Another big adjustment was living back at home with my parents again. The expensive plane tickets and demanding uni schedule meant that I was living independently for pretty much the majority of my year abroad, so as you can imagine it was strange to be back at home living under my parents’ roof once more, however, it was so nice to see them again and, of course, enjoy some quality family time.
I also found it hard to adjust to not using my Spanish language as much, especially in restaurants when you ask for ‘la carta’ or when you need to ask someone, ‘¿dónde está el baño?’. I was particularly embarrassed when someone moved their bag for me to sit down on the train and I responded with ‘gracias’. This was only met with a confused, slightly annoyed look. However, this only means that your language processing skills have improved and that is never a bad thing!!
Maintaining friendships made abroad
Upon your return to England, you'll find that your friends that would have been just round the corner from you will now be on a flight (or several flights away) so they won’t be as easy to just pop around and see anymore! Make sure to keep in contact regularly on social media or through an occasional facetime, this will not only consolidate your friendships but also help you to practice your language more. It’s important to put in the effort to plan visits to your separate countries or even post letters or even gifts to make sure that they don’t feel forgotten about! If you met friends that were able to show you around their home country, it would be a nice idea to repay the favour and show them around your hometown!
I’ve since taken my Spanish friends to enjoy a Spoons full English breakfast, to have a pint in a traditional English pub, and to shade bathe along the English coastline in Brighton while scranning a large Fish and Chips!
You might find that you’ve already gained this skill of maintaining your friendships back home whilst on your year abroad, it works in the same way!
Being reunited with the friends and family again that you may not have been able to see in a while
Unfortunately, my friends and family weren’t able to come and visit me much during my year abroad meaning that, when I came back, I found that so many things had changed and I felt a bit left out of inside jokes and keeping track of everything that everyone had been up to. However, this doesn’t mean that your friends don’t care about you anymore! It just means that you are just not as much on their radar as you perhaps used to be! Make sure to be proactive in making plans and catching up with what's been going on in their lives whilst you've been gone.
Be sure to make a conscious effort to show them how much they still matter to you. You might feel like it will take you a while to get your old relationships back (especially if they are previous housemates that you used to see all the time before) but don’t be disheartened, they will appreciate you making the effort!