The next month or so is going to be very busy for me as far as traveling. My weekends are essentially booked up until June.

And that makes me feel very excited, but almost preemptively tired. And so sometimes I feel like I should relax and hang-out while I can, because I’m going to be doing lots of stuff in the next few weeks.

But then I remember that I have such little time here. 5 months may seem like a long time, but it definitely isn’t long enough. And as we all know all too well, time has a way of moving much quicker than we hoped it would.

If anyone is keeping track (I definitely am), it was exactly 2 months ago today (April 17) that I left Canada for Austria.

It feels like a lifetime ago. Austria is my normal.

I’ve been thinking over the last couple of days about what its going to be like when I eventually leave Europe and go back home.

First of all, going backwards in time is WAAAAYYY harder than going forwards in time. Speaking from plenty of experience myself, you definitely don’t feel that awesome after going backward like that. Going from Canada to europe is fine because when you fly, the flight and crew really help get you on the right schedule. As you fly, they make you close the blinds, encourage people to sleep, feed you dinner and breakfast, etc. and so when you arrive in Europe, you’re already sort of adjusted mentally to the time. Plus, most international flights like that take off in the evenings, so 8 hours later its supposed to be morning anyways.

Going backwards is harder because even though you have traveled for a whole day, you arrive at essentially the same time you left. That’s what screws up your body’s internal clock. I remember coming back home from Greece, I couldn’t sleep until 5am, and then didn’t get out of bed until 4 in the afternoon – which is almost halfway between Canadian and Greek time. It took me several days to normalize, where as going forwards in time, you essentially adjust right away. For me, at least.

I also have been thinking about culture shock too. I’ve mentioned this before, but every exchange kid becomes well away of the “stages of culture shock” when they arrive in a foreign country. The same stages also occur when you arrive back home, and depending on how long you’re abroad, how different your host country is compared to your home country, etc. affects your “reverse culture shock” when you go back home.

So I’ve been thinking about what in Canada would be weird for me to adjust to now. And I think an overwhelmingly obvious answer is the space. Steyr is a city built ontop of itself. The farthest I’ve had to walk to get somewhere that I needed to go is 20 minutes, and that’s the train station. And that’s walking slow. Driving is almost a foreign concept – I’m sure driving is similar to riding a bicycle, where you never really forget, but to be perfectly honest, the thought of driving a car down Deerfoot Trail in Calgary right now makes me feel nervous. I’m sure I’m way over thinking it, but that’s how it is I guess.

But I think it’ll be hard to get over how far away everything is. Everything and everyone is so spread out at home. The next major city in Alberta from Calgary is atleast 2.5 hours away (Lethbridge). Here, I can go to St. Valentin in 25 minutes, Enns in 35 minutes, Linz in 50 minutes, Vienna in 1.5 hours, Salzburg in 2.5 hours. I could be in Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic or Switzerland in 4 hours or less. In Calgary it can take me almost an hour to get from 1 side of the city to the other. And in a way that makes me feel very sad. And very small.

That to me shows our culture vs. other places. We in the western half of the world like to be distant, to have space between each other. We function best when people and places are kept at arm length. And that’s not to say that we’re the only people like that, for Germans and Austrians are similar to that too, but one thing that I’ve noticed while here is that it seems much more important to us than to Austrians. And when I think about sitting in my parents home in Calgary, and how far away the grocery store is, I feel very small in comparison to the place that I live – I feel more insignificant.

In Steyr I feel much ore in control of myself and the things around me. My world is much smaller and closer to me. From my bedroom window I can see “downtown Steyr”, the University, the Alps, the rivers. Downtown isn’t this tiny speck in the distance that you can only see on a very clear day.

Space can be seen as a sign of wealth or grandeur – all the palaces and castles and monasteries that I’ve seen have proved that. But sometimes having space also shows that you are lacking in some regard – you only have so much to fill all the space. And thinking about all the things I chose to fill my “space” with has really made me think a lot about those things that I value or chose to spend my time on. It also made me think about what things I SHOULD be filling all my extra space with, so I am closer to the things that are most important.

I feel very frustrated because I don’t think I explained that very well, but I also don’t know how else I would do it?

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Another thing I think would be hard to get used to is not standing out anymore. Being a tourist is fun and all, but it can become exhausting at times. Everyone stares at you, for one thing. They may laugh, or point too. And the brave ones will ask you the same questions as everyone else: “Where are you from?” “Why are you here?” “Do you like it in Austria?” “What’s your country like?”.

In one of our first introductory meetings, an international adviser stressed to us that we are ambassadors (in a way) for our country, and it is important that we represent our country to the best of our abilities. We, as incomings, have an obligation to be the best we can be for our country. This means we have to be extra careful to be good citizens, good people, polite, respectful, etc. so we do not give incorrect ideas or impressions about our country or the people from our country. And there is some pressure associated with this “responsibility”. I have to give so many presentations on my country, I probably know a great deal more about Canada than many people I know. I have to be up-to-date with any and all news associated with my country, including the American election, which I get asked about on occasion. I have to be absolutely politically correct about everything, so I don’t have the chance to offend or bother anyone. People analyze my english, my opinions/views, my gestures when I communicate, how I dress, and how interact with others. I do feel like I’m in a spotlight almost everywhere I go.

But it gets easier. After a while, you stop caring a little. The other day I ran into my friends from  Ireland on the street – they were going to the grocery store, and I was heading home from the grocery store. So we were standing on the sidewalk just talking and laughing about whatever. And there were several people who were sitting in a cafe close by, or up on a balcony/at a window just staring at us as we talked. And I didn’t really think much of it, to be honest. I walk down the street to school and I have people staring at me – you get to know who’s foreign pretty quick around here. At train stations or in the cities, the same sort of things happen. And after a while, you have to just tune those kind of things out, because it becomes too tiring to constantly be conscious of that stuff.

But once I get home, I get to blend in with everyone else again. I mean, I can blend once I get over whatever weird shock I get when I first get home haha. And hopefully I don’t spout German on accident or something haha.

And while that sounds relieving, I think I’ll miss it a little. It’s kind of flattering that everyone notices you or thinks you’re interesting. People want to know about you and what you think, where you come from, things like that. No one at home cares much for these things – I don’t think any of my friends read this blog, just a few family members, and a couple Austrian students from time to time. People at home think I’m crazy – why would I leave a perfectly good thing at home to go somewhere else where its different and hard and I spend lots of money.

One thing I have definitely learned is that no one cares much about other people’s stories. Not at home, anyways. And I have seen it happen all the time. Take missionaries, for example.

When an RM comes home, other students and friends will be excited about them returning, and ask them how the mission was. But very quickly they move on, and get annoyed if the RM brings up their mission – old news, we get it, you went somewhere, did stuff, now get back to normal.

And I have mentioned this in a previous post before as well – we focus very much on “getting back to normal”, and not letting anything disrupt what we think our normal is. And you see this is all the “space” we have. We like to have our own little world and our own lives, and we may allow something to chance for a short while – an RM comes home – but too much change or disruption has to be pushed to arms length. And so part of my job has to be to internalize the things about my trip that change me, or stories I want to share, because no one at home will much care to hear them. People are very quick to dismiss disruption, and I am guilty of this as much as anyone else.

And so part of the underlying reason for me writing this blog I guess, is that people who actually care can hear (read) my stories, and I can tell them, without boring or bothering anyone back home. Because I am all too familiar with what it feels like to be really excited to share experiences, only to be shut down by people who you thought would be excited to hear them.

And I’m not really complaining, just more thinking out loud. The amount of cultural diversity that I am constantly surrounded by has taught me a lot about people, and about myself. Every culture and society is so vastly different, yet also pretty similar. The culture I am surrounded by at home is much more about results than the journey.

I am taking an Intercultural Management class at school, and one of the activities we had was that someone from every country had to come to the chalk board, and using circles only, we had to show how we see time – past, present, and future. Since I am the only Canadian in my class, I had to go to the board. Here’s an example:

 

Our culture focus very much on the present and the future, whereas the past is not as valuable. This also can be attributed to how “young” our history is – we don’t have as much of a past to refer to compared to Europe, Asia, Africa, even South America.And so we value the things in our life now that will benefit us the most in the future. And this was really interesting to learn about from my lecturer, because that definitely rang true for me, and that’s what made me think about this whole subject in the first place.

If I really want people to know that I have traveled, or have experienced lots of things associated with travelling, I can’t do it by telling them about it – because we don’t care.I always thought that travelling would make me more interesting or more important or more valuable because I had seen things or done things or have “more life experience” than other people. And the older I get the more I have learned that I am wrong in thinking this. The act of traveling itself is not what makes me better or more valuable, its what I do with that experience that people care about. People at home don’t want to hear about the places I go they want to SEE them – in how I act, interact with people, treat people, work with others, etc. We focus on the people we are now, and who we will be in the future, not how we became those people. No one wants to know where I have been, they want to know what those places have taught me, and how I am going to use those lessons going forward.

And as I learned about this, and thought about this, I kind of hit a wall – that’s a lot of humbling to happen in a short amount of time! Because it also begs the question: Who am I now? Am I different than when I left? Have I learned anything? Who am I going to be when I get back home?

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This post has taken me most of the morning to write. And I’ll be honest – I wasn’t sure if I would post it. Because I know that someone will read this and think that I’m trying too hard or that I’m being dramatic or fake or whatever.

But I decided that I was going to do it anyways. Because, like I have said many times, this is my story, and my journey. And I never once asked for anyone else’s opinions on the matter. This exchange is going to mean a lot for the rest of my life – the things I learn and think and experience are going to shape who I am, what I value, and what I want to do with my future. And so maybe evaluating who I am as a person is not something you particularly care to read, I’m going to write about anyways.

Because this exchange is for me. It has always been for me. And I think that took me too long to realize.

And I am so very grateful. There are things that I wouldn’t have learned about myself, about my culture, that I wouldn’t have been able to learn at home, doing what everyone else was doing.

Exchange definitely isn’t easy either. I haven’t seen most of my friends in 4 months, and some I won’t see for years. I’m going to miss my brother’s graduation, the birth of my first niece/nephew, the homecoming of a dear friend of mine, my best friend’s wedding, celebrating my birthday with my family, seeing my friend off to her mission. I’ve missed parties, birthdays, milestones, get-togethers, and many good memories with people I care for. I have to extend my degree by a semester, so I won’t graduate University at the same time as most of my friends. I will miss the opportunity to work during the summer, putting financial strain on myself for the next couple years. I miss Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, 2 of my sibling’s birthdays, several of my friend’s birthdays.

It looks like its all fun and games, but its not.

But you don’t have to worry about me – I’m just fine.

I knew when I started the sacrifices I would have to make, the things I would miss, but I did it because I knew (mostly hoped) that I would gain so much more by going. Missing birthday and holidays suck. Missing my niece/nephew being born is really hard. Missing my family and friends really hurts sometimes. But when I think about who I am changing into, and the lessons I’ve learned, and all the people I have met and places I’ve seen, I feel so blessed to be able to do and see things people wish their whole lives to do and see. I’m kind of living the dream. And I will be forever grateful to my Heavenly Father for placing me into a position to do the things I get to do. I am so incredibly blessed and grateful for every day I spend here, and I don’t want to ever look back and regret wasting my opportunity.

There will be other birthdays and parties. I’ll see my friends and family again soon.

But above all, I hope that my exchange will help me to be a better me. I’m often closed-minded, stubborn, loud, sarcastic to a fault, and tend to focus on myself before anyone else. And being here has really helped me to improve in many of these aspects.

So I’m okay. I’m doing fine. I’m happy, and content. I’m healthy. I’m a little disorganized. Maybe a little stressed sometimes. But I’m grateful. I’m blessed. I’m ready for the next 3 months, and welcome the challenge.

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I’m sorry about this post. This was not at all what I originally sat down to write about. But its what came out. Its too long in my opinion, but felt really nice to write.

Today me and some friends are going to to the river in the afternoon and read/hangout and enjoy the sun. Summer kind of skipped Spring here in Steyr, and we have been having BEAUTIFUL weather – very bright and warm. The last couple weeks the forecast has been in the 20+ degrees, and everyone is getting excited for Summer to start haha.

Thanks for sticking with me throughout this whole experience, and for reading all the way to the end of this post – you’re a real trooper haha. It’s crazy to think that I’m almost half way done!! That is both reassuring and terrifying!

I also can’t seem to end this post!! Why do I continue typing?!?!

I have to go – its 12:20pm and I haven’t eaten yet today.

Thanks again for everything.

 

emma.k