Wanderlust

As of today, I am officially one month away from my next move. The plan is to move home at Christmas, then come back for a week and a half after Christmas to train the next nanny. That, however, may change, and I may end up training her before I leave for Christmas, which would result in me going to Korea in January rather than February - but that all remains to be seen.*

At any rate, my time in New Jersey is quickly coming to a close.

As I wait (somewhat impatiently) for my FSOT results, my thoughts remain in South Korea. For, as I've mentioned before, becoming a US diplomat is my dream, teaching English in Korea is my plan.

For me, one of the hardest things about moving to Spain was moving back. Culture shock wasn't too much of a problem. It was expected and planned for. Reverse culture shock, however, came from out of the blue and blindsided me.

I've been doing a lot of research (read:surfing the web) for my adventure in Korea, and as I was reading some forums (fori?) this evening, I came across a thread on reverse culture shock. As I read posts, a wave of memories washed over me. Memories of getting the urge to request movie tickets or order at a restaurant in Spanish, for example. More notably, Koreans and Spaniards appear to have something in common which is difficult for Americans to adapt to.**

Two words.

Personal space.

It's okay to run right into someone and not even acknowledge it.

I recall performing a sociological experiment in my neighborhood in Madrid. Bearing in mind that it has been more than two years since I moved back to the States from Madrid and my skills of estimation are rudimentary at best, I would estimate that Calle de las Delicias was at least 20 feet wide.**

A couple of times, I played chicken walking down that street.

I got tired of being the one to always move out of the way and wondered, if I didn't move, would the other person move to avoid running into me?

Yes, Madrid is crowded. But I lived out in the sticks (no, I'm lying. But it makes a clever pun off my metro stop).

However, even in a crowded city, there are bound to be times when you find yourself in an uncrowded situation. At certain times of the day, my neighborhood was definitively uncrowded. These were the times when I spontaneously chose to perform my sociological experiment (read:play chicken). When walking down a 20-ft-wide sidewalk, if there is only one person coming from the opposite direction, but they are directly in your path - will they move to avoid you? The answer is "No."

I'm not kidding. I ran into people this way. But only a couple of times, because I get annoyed running into people so I resumed dodging Spaniards.

This is not to say that I did not learn how to adapt to the culture. I felt a bit guilty one day when I pushed my way onto the bus (in typical Spanish fashion) and encouraged Kelly to push in with me, only for her backpack to get caught in the doors. I didn't feel guilty for too long, though, because the picture was pretty funny and that made up for it.

But back to my point (I really did have one): As I sit here and think about what was, for me, the most difficult aspect of my overseas experience, the only thing I feel is a desire to go abroad again, to have a new experience.

And I wonder, will I ever be content to remain in one place? Is Wanderlust terminal?


*That's basically all I know at this point; hopefully I will know more soon. I plan to go to Korea roughly one month after moving back to Washington.
**Arggh.. Grammar rules have changed and I know that it is now acceptable for me to leave a prepostion dangling, but it still hurts a little.
**That is, the sidewalk on the northern side of the street (if my sense of direction serves me correctly).