RTW Recovery: Tara is Employed!

Yay, I’m employed! This isn’t the view from my desk, but I can deal with that.

You’ve already read the spoiler, but I’ll say it anyway: I accepted a position with an international e-commerce company only two months after our RTW trip ended! Yay!!!

Before I dive into how this process unfolded upon our return, it’s important for me to explain how I got there. From the very beginning planning stages this trip, Mike and I felt like we were taking a big risk quitting our secure, well-paying jobs in the middle of an economic depression to travel around the world. I thought my employment gap would be frowned upon and my résumé skipped over. I imagined it would take months to get an interview and even longer to be offered a job. If anything was holding me back from completely embracing the idea of a RTW trip, it was the fear of being unable to land another job that I felt good about (read: as opposed to a bottom-rung position being paid minimum wage).

RTW Recovery: Navigating America’s Food Scene

Welcome to our new series, called RTW Recovery Wednesday, in which we tackle topics that have made our transition back to the USA easy or difficult. Posts will offer a candid breakdown of what it’s like to return to what we used to call “home” after living in our own bubble as we traveled around the world for 14 months. Read our first recovery post about reexperiencing “American attitude.”

—–

KFC in Iceland near Keflavík Airport.

We have experienced many culture shocks since returning but none as great as food. To understand why and how food is a culture shock, you only have to think of the constant interaction you have with it. Three times a day, you eat (this doesn’t even include snacks along the way). Often, the phrase “comfort food” refers to a type of food that brings you back to your childhood or just makes you feel good when you eat it. When you travel internationally for 14 months, your access to comfort food shrinks, and you adapt. What perhaps was easy to get ahold of in the United States is impossible to find on the road. Soon, our feelings toward food began to change—through our palate, our portions, and our loss of desire for Western dishes.

This shift began the second we stepped onto a plane bound for Iceland, our first destination. No matter where we went around the world, there were McDonald’s (except Iceland), Starbucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. We traveled the world and could not escape American fast food. The same portion, the same flavor. Everything was being churned out with the expectation that if you walked into a McDonald’s in Singapore and ordered a Big Mac, it would taste the same as if you ordered it in New York. This meant access to our American comfort food almost any time we wanted it. There was just one small problem: Years ago, we stopped eating meat and poultry, and all but cut out fast food. So while there was constant access to food from home, fast food restaurants were foreign lands to us.

RTW Recovery: Dealing With Reverse Culture Shock

Two things we could not have been happier to return home to. Thanks, Lisa and Rick!

Welcome to our new series, called RTW Recovery Wednesday, in which we tackle topics that have made our transition back to the USA easy or difficult. Posts will offer a candid breakdown of what it’s like to return to what we used to call “home” after living in our own bubble as we traveled around the world for 14 months.

—–

Leading up to our return to the USA after 14 months of RTW travel, everyone had something to say about reverse culture shock. Mostly that it was inevitable. Everything they said scared us more than the thought of jumping off a cliff again. Time out, time out! Didn’t we grow up in America? Don’t we already know that a $1 soup in Thailand costs $7 in NYC? We didn’t lose our memory, we just disappeared for more than a year.

Common sense told me that reverse culture shock should not be as, well, shocking as culture shock. I know what Western prices are, I know what the food is like and I know there is a diverse group of people here. But just because I remembered those things did not mean I was prepared to ease back into the American way. Like culture shock, you have to experience reverse culture shock for yourself to understand what it means to you specifically.