The Traveling Jade

The reintegration process is often (I feel) overlooked in study abroad. Many people assume that once you’re back, it’s all over, and while the actual studying part is over, there’s still the reintegration aspect left. For some, this can be just as challenging as arriving to your host country for the first time. In fact, there’s even a term for it, reverse culture shock. I first learned about it while abroad and it basically is what it sounds like. You become so accustomed to your host country’s culture and lifestyle that coming home becomes foreign and you have to readapt to how life was. 

One of my first exposures to this came on the flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta. The people on the plane seemed more intense and much less friendly than the Aussies I grew accustomed to. Nobody wanted to chat, and most people kept to themselves, a contrast to the nice and talkative folk from my 13 hour flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. I’ve been told that Americans have a tendency to always be stressed even when on vacation, and while I never truly noticed that, I could feel it when I came back. The atmosphere felt more mundane and tense.

The hardest part of being back, though, was the jet lag. The 14-hour time difference was tough to readjust to. Strangely, when I first arrived in Australia it was much easier to adjust to (16 hour time difference), probably because there was more overlap in daylight hours. However, coming back I kept falling asleep around 6 p.m. and waking up at 3 a.m. I think it took a little more than a week to fully recover, partly because I kept giving in to midday “naps,” which, as everyone warns, only make things worse.

As I readjusted to life back in Florida, I slowly started to feel the effects from the lack of public transport in my hometown. It felt restricting as I no longer had access to these services anymore, and it reminded me how truly car-dependent Florida was. Having to relearn how to drive on the right side was a minor challenge. When I first drove again, I started small, beginning with less busy roads like neighborhood streets until I fully got used to being on the right side of the road until it felt natural again. 

Out of everything I miss about Australia, I miss the wildlife and nature the most. Even though Melbourne is a large urban city, the parks there made me feel like I was in the middle of the woods. It’s one of the many things I loved about them, since they preserved a lot of the natural vegetation, unlike most parks in Florida, where they tend to focus on the aesthetic values and not the indigenous vegetation. To compare, most parks in my hometown and across the US have paved paths or trimmed lawns with plants (often non-native) they’ve planted, while the ones in Melbourne are woodsy with simple dirt trails and benches every few meters. Nostalgically, I miss the sounds of Australian birds despite the cacophony of noises they made during the early hours of the morning. It’s weird how quiet it is back home and the fact that there are far fewer birds around. 

One of the few things I did look forward to upon returning, was the weather. When I left Melbourne, it was the middle of winter, and while the temperatures weren’t too extreme (around 45–55ºF), the lack of heating and insulation in houses made it feel much colder and miserable at times. Most days were gray, with off and on rain showers the entire day. I looked forward to the Florida sunshine. I relished having that warmth back even though it was in the 100s. Also, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the Florida afternoon thunderstorms since it hardly ever thundered in Australia, only a light drizzle, despite Melbourne’s reputation as being the city with four seasons in one day. 

Overall I had a fairly smooth reintegration process. Of course, I miss Australia every day, but I’m forever grateful to have had this opportunity in the first place. I hope to continue sharing my experiences through this blog as well as inspiring others to do the same.