About a month ago I was having dinner with some girl friends when my friend Haley gave me the most amazing thing. A magnet for my oven with all of the conversions of temps.

This may seem like an ordinary gift but for me it was very timely. Nearly every day I use our oven. And every day I checked my little dripped on print out that was crumpled in the kitchen drawer by the oven. You would think after living in Bogota and converting for those 2 yrs that I would have all of the important temps memorized but I don’t. It appears that I have a mental block . Something is engrained in me to rely on what I know. What I am comfortable with. And that, my friends, is Fahrenheit.

I find culture shock rears it’s head at times and in circumstances I wouldn’t expect. I think I thought in clean, fancy shmancy Switzerland that there wouldn’t be culture shock and if there was I should just buck up and accept it because who can complain living here. I agree, there are much worse places we could be. Thank you to those of you serving in places that are even farther away feeling! At the end of the day when we are away from home, we are away from home. You know that feeling you have after being on a long trip…all great places and fun people…you just want to be home. I have days like that here. We are soaking in experiences and enjoying all of the wonderful things Switzerland has to offer. But the truth is it isn’t home.

How could something so simple as converting temps for the oven be annoying?  How could I be so thrown when cilantro is not available on the one day I want to make guacamole because I am homesick for Tex Mex?  How could I feel like shrieking at the lady at the store who glares at Jackson for just being in the store with me? How could I be grumpy about cooking dinner because there isn’t any easy pick up dinner that we can afford? How could I be so anxious about driving…isn’t a car a car anywhere? Aren’t roads all the same? Those things that we know and are comfortable with just aren’t the same every where we go. It doesn’t make them wrong it just makes them different from what we know.  It brews the perfect concoction for culture shock. It comes in many different forms. Sometimes it boils over (God forbid when I am driving or in the grocery check out line with 2 toddlers), sometimes it calmly simmers, but it’s there. And unfortunately it doesn’t discriminate. It occurs anywhere that isn’t home.

So thanks, Haley, for giving me a gift that reminds me of home. And that provides a crutch for my brain that is locked into Fahrenheit and can’t seem to embrace Celsius! I am so glad that you are a friend that reminds me that is okay!!