This is exactly what I was going to say. I lived in a different country for a year while I worked as an English teacher, and I both loved and hated the "everything is an adventure" aspect of daily life. Need to talk to your bank? You'd better fucking focus, because you're about to use vocabulary that you don't use on a daily basis. Going to the grocery store? Oh shit, the way they have their register set up, I can't just read the total so now I have to focus because numbers are hard because there's no context to give you a nudge if you forget a word for a second. They're making an announcement on the train? You'd better listen up, because the sound quality isn't good and there's no face to look at to help with understanding. Also, there's a big difference between knowing enough of a language and get by in daily life and being fluent enough to have real conversations beyond the weather so you can actually make friends. I'm glad I went and I had a lot of experiences I value, but it was also the loneliest I've ever been and it was really tiring. I remember landing at O'Hare and riding the tram, an announcement came over the PA system, and I realized I was understanding everything without trying, and I was just like, "holy shit this is SO EASY." Same thing the first time I went grocery shopping back in the states, "this is so easy." I kind of missed the aspect of IT'S ADVENTURE TIME BABY, LET'S GO GROCERY SHOPPING, but damn it was nice just sliding back into a culture where I knew how to do things and how to respond appropriately without effort.
This is exactly what I was going to say. I lived in a different country for a year while I worked as an English teacher, and I both loved and hated the "everything is an adventure" aspect of daily life. Need to talk to your bank? You'd better fucking focus, because you're about to use vocabulary that you don't use on a daily basis. Going to the grocery store? Oh shit, the way they have their register set up, I can't just read the total so now I have to focus because numbers are hard because there's no context to give you a nudge if you forget a word for a second. They're making an announcement on the train? You'd better listen up, because the sound quality isn't good and there's no face to look at to help with understanding. Also, there's a big difference between knowing enough of a language and get by in daily life and being fluent enough to have real conversations beyond the weather so you can actually make friends. I'm glad I went and I had a lot of experiences I value, but it was also the loneliest I've ever been and it was really tiring. I remember landing at O'Hare and riding the tram, an announcement came over the PA system, and I realized I was understanding everything without trying, and I was just like, "holy shit this is SO EASY." Same thing the first time I went grocery shopping back in the states, "this is so easy." I kind of missed the aspect of IT'S ADVENTURE TIME BABY, LET'S GO GROCERY SHOPPING, but damn it was nice just sliding back into a culture where I knew how to do things and how to respond appropriately without effort.