And now it's August...

I'm back in Arcata, and a couple people (no names) have been bugging me to post more about my trip...so I will, but not now.

I don't have the internet at home, and the only place on campus with internet happens to be the same place where I work, and since we're only open limited hours before school starts I haven't had a lot of time to post.

I'm going to start writing at home on my word processor and I'll post an account of my trip around the U.K. sometime next week.

Since returning I don't think I've had to deal with too much culture shock. Just a couple little things have caught me off guard. I think shopping for food is probably the strangest experience of all. The quantities of food at the supermarket are so much larger than in Europe, and the expiration dates seem so much longer. In Finland, the milk only seemed to last for a week, but here milk seems to stay fresh for a month. It's a little scary actually. And American supermarkets are so much bigger, and there are so many varieties of everything that it's a little overwhelming.

The cashiers in the U.S. do so much more work too. In Europe they get to sit down, and they don't have to bag your groceries. In Germany and France they even get mad at you if you don't have exact change. Sometimes the friendly American banter is a little too much for me, but it always has been. I guess I just get a little too focused when I'm running errands.

Arcata has left me a little culture shocked as well. This city and its inhabitants are pretty weird, but that's part of the reason why it's so fabulous.