Originally Posted by
solveg
Did you go into culture shock when you came back? I remember being stunned, after a few months in Mexico as a kid, to come back and find fancy orange and white barriers with lights in front of holes in the road. Down there I had gotten used to the ol' burning oil rag in a coffee can on top of the dirt from the hole. I remember thinking how rich we were that we probably spent a couple hundred dollars to tell people where every hole was.
Having traveled a fair amount and lived abroad, I guess I'm used to coming back and experiencing the culture shock. You're right; a lot of things we take for granted in the U.S. are a luxury elsewhere in the world (e.g., guardrails, handicapped access, sanitary tap water...). On the other hand, the airports in Peru (Lima, Cuzco, Chiclayo) were all a heck of a lot nicer than Miami International (which I fly into regularly for business and usually hate, except for the *excellent* Cuban food at La Carreta).
The only thing that shocked me coming back to the US trip was the number of adult *men* wearing shorts in the airport. I was standing in the St. Louis airport on our way back to Seattle, and notice that practically every middle aged male was wearing shorts (except for me). And hardly any women. And I thought, "when did shorts become a male-only garment for adults past the age of 40?"