One of the things I worried about when I began travelling was culture shock.

I had always heard how unfamiliar cultures can sort of wear you down after awhile just from the sheer difference of where you are from where you used to be...and when I didn't have a problem with it, I thought it would crop up unexpectedly in the indefinite someday, maybe when things got stranger. What I found eventually was that yes, I get culture shock, but it is not what I thought it would be. I don't have a problem with how different things are, I have a problem when I feel like I am back home. For instance, when I went out to a bar with some friends and that ancient country song "Lucille" was wailing on the soundsystem, followed by more very familiar and similar songs I knew from growing up in Arkansas. Or when I visited the home of the director where I'm working, a home located waaaay out in the sticks -- and his home looked like I was in a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin. That's what my culture shock is like: when I know I am overseas but I feel like I am back in the States. And maybe why I didn't have much problem until these instances is because I try very much to BE where I AM, and I mostly *like* the differences :-)