9 Culture Shocks That Still Hit Me Every Time I Return To The U.S. After Living Abroad

Coming Home Feels Less Like Returning and More Like Reentry

From Tipping Screens to the Cereal Aisle Meltdown, America No Longer Feels Like Home

Have you ever come home after years abroad and felt like you needed a translator, a therapist, and a helmet just to survive a trip to Target?

Every time I walk into a Target after years abroad, I feel like I need a survival guide just to make it past the front displays. It never changes….

That’s me every time. Jetlagged. Mildly sunburned from a layover in Madrid. Staring down an aisle of what feels like 173 cereal options, each one louder and more sugar-crazed than the last.

I’m never even hungry. I just want to remember what cereal I ate as a kid.

Ten minutes later, I’m squatting in front of something called “Frosted Fiber Explosion,” wondering how I ever functioned in this country.

I’ve spent over 20 years living in places like Ukraine, Albania, and Georgia.

Places where the cereal aisle is a single sad shelf and a babushka yelling at a kid on a metro car for not giving up his seat, counts as entertainment.

I couldn’t even imagine anything could hit harder than my first Kyiv winter that split my dress shoes clean in half.

Then I started going back home and with each trip back I get blindsided by reverse culture shock.

But, there it is…

America, the land of my birth and once my Blockbuster card, now feels foreign.

Hell, Blockbuster doesn’t even exist anymore!

It feels foreign, not in the “this is exotic and exciting” way, but in the “why is everyone yelling and why are there five self check-out registers with no cashiers and none accept cash anymore” kind of way.

What I thought would be heartwarming, nostalgic homecomings have turned out to be some of the most bizarre cultural reentries I’ve ever experienced.

This from someone who once lived in a post-Soviet walk-up where my neighbor’s hallway conversations had more plot twists than a full season of daytime soap operas.

Full volume. Every night. Usually starting around midnight.

In this piece, I’m unpacking the nine most bizarre things that blindside me every time I visit “home.”.

If you’ve been abroad long enough to forget what a Walgreens smells like, buckle up folks. This might hit closer to home than you’re ready for.

1. I Get Overstimulated Just Walking Into Target

Every time those sliding glass doors whoosh open, it feels like I’m entering a Vegas casino disguised as a department store. Blinding lights. TVs shouting at me. A wall of red signs promising savings I didn’t ask for.

Oh, and what’s up with the music so upbeat at 9 a.m.?

After years of shopping in Tbilisi corner markets or dealing with French clerks who barely look up, Target feels like an ambush.

Lights flashing. Music blaring. TVs shouting.

My fight-or-flight kicks in before I even reach the carts.

I go in for toothpaste and come out dizzy, holding a throw pillow that says “Gather.”

What to keep in mind: Choice isn’t always freedom.

Sometimes it’s just 142 types of cereal reminding you you’ve lost the plot.

2. Tipping Now Gives Me Anxiety and I’m American!

In Ukraine, tipping was simple.

Leave no tip, round up or leave 10 percent if the borscht changed your life. 

It was a choice, not a touchscreen guilt trip.

Now, imagine my panic when a smoothie stand in the U.S. flips a screen toward me, asking if I want to leave 25 percent for the guy who just pressed “blend” and is now staring at me.

I start sweating like I’m diffusing a bomb.

Press “no tip” and feel like a monster.

Press “custom” and everyone in line watches me do math like a sociopath.

What to keep in mind: If you need a tip screen for handing someone a muffin, maybe we’ve gone too far.

3. The Food Portions? Outrageous

The first time I went to a diner after flying back from France, I thought they’d accidentally brought me the entire table’s order.

Nope. That mountain of pancakes, hash browns, bacon, and three eggs was “mine”.

In France, I’ve had full meals that fit on a salad plate and still walk away satisfied.

In the U.S., I barely make a dent before I need a nap and a therapist.

What to keep in mind: More isn’t better.

It’s just more to explain when the waiter asks if everything was okay and you’ve only eaten the garnish.

4. Everyone’s in a Rush But Going Nowhere

I swear, people back home walk like they’re in a hostage escape movie. Grocery carts weaving, coffee in one hand, phone in the other.

But, for what? So they can sit in traffic and honk at someone going the speed limit?

In Greece, coffee is served in tiny porcelain cups, and you actually sit, “sit” to drink it.

You might even talk to someone.

In the U.S., if you sit to drink coffee, you’re suspected of unemployment or being a table camper by the staff.

What to keep in mind: Hustle culture looks impressive until you realize no one knows where they’re going, they’re just late getting there.

5. The Small Talk Feels Scripted

“How are you?”
“Good, you?”
“Good.”

It’s the verbal version of opening a pop-up ad and clicking away before it loads.

After years of chats in broken Russian with a Ukrainian shopkeeper who once told me about the strawberries he gets from his cousin’s dacha, this pre-programmed script feels hollow.

In Georgia, someone once asked me why I was walking so early in the morning.

We ended up having a 20-minute discussion on life purpose, right there on the street.

Back home, if you pause the “good-you-good” loop, people look confused.

What to keep in mind: Real connection often begins after the script ends.

6. I Feel Like a Foreigner in My Own Language

Once, I walked into a café and overheard a girl telling the barista, “Some creepy guy just came up and asked for my DM like we were in some rom-com or something. His vibe was so off. Total cringe. Like, What’s up with that? What’s that all about? ”

I understood none of it.

I speak English.

After speaking French, Russian, and Spanish in varying degrees of fluency, I expect a home court, language advantage.

Instead, I feel like I needed subtitles.

Meanwhile, I still say things like “cheers” and “mate” after working for years with Brits, without ever realizing I’d become that guy.

What to keep in mind: Language evolves… and if you’re gone long enough, so does yours. Welcome to cultural purgatory.

7. I’m Judged for Not Owning a Car

“Wait, how do you get places?” someone asked me when I mentioned I don’t drive. As if I’d just confessed to commuting by… bus! God forbid.

In France, I walk, take the train, trams. In Kyiv, I took the metro, where escalators are so steep you wonder if you’re descending into Mordor.

In the U.S., if you say you walk anywhere, people assume you’re poor or your license is suspended.

What to keep in mind: Walking is a lifestyle, not a cry for help.

8. Why Is Everything So Loud

Restaurants. Phones. Bathroom hand dryers that sound like fighter jets. I even saw a gas pump that played ads.

In Hungary, I once ate a quiet dinner where the loudest sound was the clink of a spoon against a bowl. 

In the U.S., your server yells their name and favorite appetizer before you even sit down.

I felt like I needed earplugs and a safe word.

What to keep in mind: Silence isn’t awkward. It’s peace with better acoustics.

9. Everything’s Convenient But Somehow Exhausting

Same-day delivery. Drive-thru everything. Mobile check-in, auto-bill pay, scan-and-go.

You’d think it would make life easier. 

Yet, I’ve never seen so many people stressed out, multi-tasking three apps at once while shouting “Alexa, order paper towels!”

In Albania, I once waited an hour for a handwritten bus ticket. 

Was it efficient? Absolutely not.

But I also didn’t have six notifications asking me to rate my experience.

What to keep in mind: Convenience without margin becomes just another form of chaos.

What Visiting Home Really Shows You

Coming back doesn’t just show you what’s changed. It shows you how much you have.

You see what others don’t. 

The noise. The pace. The pressure to act “normal”.

Somewhere between the drive-thrus, the misspelled coffee cups with fake smiley faces, and the small talk that dies on arrival, it hits you.

You’re not home. You’re just passing through.

This isn’t culture shock. It’s proof you’ve outgrown the place.

What hit you the hardest when you went back? 

I know I’m not the only one who almost lost it in the cereal aisle.