culture — Europe — Justin Proctor

I honestly didn't know what to write this week because I honestly haven't done much. It's been raining all week and I've been editing photos. I decided to talk about my experience as a whole so far. My whole life I've been extremely privileged to have the opportunity to travel. Growing up I moved to several different states and visited most of the continental United States. Along with that, I also was able to visit various parts of the Caribbean and Mexico. I had taken these experiences for granted when I was younger, complaining some of the time because I just wanted to hang out with my friends. It wasn't until later on in life that I found the importance of traveling and experiencing different cultures. As a child I didn't understand why others acted the way they did. Even little things such as eating different things for breakfast that I would eat for lunch or dinner.

Throughout America you can see vast differences in speech and behavior. My family in New England will eat a lot of seafood, for example on Christmas a lot of the time we will have lobster rather than turkey or ham. In Arizona we eat a lot of Mexican food and Texas has a lot more barbecue. The other day I was talking to one of my friend from Tennessee, that's going to my school in Paris, and we were comparing common phrases we would use in our parts of the country.

Now those are just differences within a single country, imagine how shocking it is to travel thousands of miles to another part of the world and experience their culture. Common things that I enjoyed back home are unheard of here in Europe. I know most of you that are over the age of 21 have enjoyed a few mimosas on Sundays, but here nobody I've talked to has even tried a mimosa. They always say, 'why dilute the champagne with orange juice?' I guess they have a point, so in London they drink Prosecco and eat roast on Sundays. One of my favorite things to eat is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, in Paris there will be a wall of jelly with one kind of peanut butter and it's triple the price because they don't really eat pb&j's here. Instead, they put jelly on crackers or nutella on toast.

Culturally there are so many differences that I could write a post just on that. Some examples are here in Paris you 'faire la bise' (kiss cheeks) when you say hello or goodbye to a friend, but in America we would just hug. My friends thought it was so weird that in America we hug so much. The French regard the hug as more intimate that kissing cheeks, but for me I feel the other way. It has been funny seeing my friends reactions whenever I forget and hug them. As a culture, many holidays aren't celebrated, like halloween has just become a thing in Europe. They also don't have prom in high school or greek life in college.

Okay I understand those are just minor differences between different cultures and aren't very impactful. However, if you add all of those up you soon realize that everything you're accustomed to is different to other cultures. People here think the things that I do are weird, but to me and my culture back in America, it's normal. I think it's important for everybody to experience different cultures to give them a different perspective on the world. There's so much going on in the world right now, good and bad. Maybe we need to put ourselves in their shoes to help realize why people are acting the way they are. Perhaps, it's hard to understand because they experience things differently than you. My parents taught me something from an early age, which is to treat others as you would like to be treated because we're all just people in the end no matter where we come from. I hope everybody has a great week and I will see you next time.