North vs South - Weather and small look on cultural shock

So, yesterday I had a small moment of weakness over something little. Which got me to rant about a lot of things, including the Netherlands type of encounters.
Which reminded me that sometimes you need to repeat a little about one of the constant lessons I learn when outside, the cultural shock.

You might be wondering why it is something I say it's a constant lesson. Because, although for most people might seem like something that comes and go, cultural shock it's something you live through as long as you stay in the outside. In my case, I started to have it quite delayed, since it only hit me hard on the second year.

So, I am not going to bother in explaining what cultural shock is. What I am going to do is explain how it can affect you, how I feel it most of the time, and the difference when feeling it in a big city and a small city.

Well, but first, let's talk about the weather.
I come from Portugal, which, although it doesn't have the most awesome weather ever (it rains a lot more in Portugal than in the place where I am at), makes you somewhat used to having warmer temperatures but more humidity. When I am here, I often find myself missing small things, for example, not going out and have my eyes cry and my bones freeze up in the 2 degrees dry weather and wind.
Another thing, which I thought I would never miss, is the feeling of after getting all wet from the rain get into a public transport and warm up, while observing everyone all wet and feeling their bones coming back to life slowly... This is a very slow progress, since it is not like the bus has such a high heater (actually, I think it is probably mostly the human heat really).

In here, unless you are either dutch or have a job... the transports end up being a privilege which you can't really get in, instead, you bicycle everywhere you need. Which ends up giving a very VERY different feeling on your bones than what you get on the ritual I previously described.

For one thing, they might not have so much rain, but they definitely have wind. So when you actually manage to pull yourself out of the bed, you realize that you just woke up to fight against mother nature in it's bad days.
Might not sound much, but imagine having to pull all your will to get out on a snowy day for example. So, you place yourself in your bycicle, zip your coat, and start pedaling.
The wind comes, making your pedaling hard and your legs to feel tired, yet, you can't not do it, because otherwise you will take ages to get to school. So you force your limbs to carry on, despite feeling like a snail could overpass you.
While you are doing this, you are also making the wind blow harder on your face and knees (because these always end up uncovered during bike rides), which get's you to feel like an old lady with your joins hurting from the cold and...

Wait, you are crying.

Yes, your eyes start to tear up because you have negative temperatures shooting inside your eyes. It is painful, as the more they tear up and you blink, you feel a sudden relief and a quick return to that unpleasant state.

Now about what you feel like it is missing from the first picture I painted you. While among portuguese, you would probably see a bunch of people complaining, people unprepared, someone laughing on shops about you going snail velocity... In here they just don't really do it. Common day to day life it's not a motive for facial expression, or teasing commentary towards strangers. Because the dutchies reserve those emotions and feelings for those they care, while we mostly just have them and express them.

So, this will line up for the second topic, but before I leave the weather topic, I can say that when the weather maintains under 10 degrees for many periods, one can expect to get REALLY gloomy and pessimist. I don't even question this anymore, I just accept that if the weather suddenly goes from 10 degrees to 0 I'll just be super gloomy and be assaulted by missing home feelings.

Now that I got the weather issues cleared up, let's talk about the cultural shock.

First, let's also say that I experienced being abroad in a big city for a couple of months. And although I experienced some down times, it never gets as bad as in a village (also because this is a north country and I was in the South of France).
The main reason I think between the differences is that I would always have somewhere to go in a big city. No matter how idiotic it was, I could just go to the comic store search for new manga titles to download at home.
I could dress up for it, place some make up, get ready to feel like a movie star as I practiced sight seeing and getting lost in the city (I was in France also, so it helped).

This has a hard time happening when you are in a small town.
At first, let's face it, you take around 1 hour to do the complete tour. And the netherlands, although it has it's own charms, it doesn't really let your imagination flow about being somewhere glamorous or seeing beauty around you. Much less in a city where you just see in 1 hour while your eyes tear with the cold.
For excuses to go out, you hardly have them. Most of the time when I go out it means I ran out of supplies and need to go to the supermarket. But if it is to window shopping, try to find new things in the narrow streets... yeah, you won't get anything that exciting.

So, you have two options, either spend a lot of time and money going to a real city (which you just don't because your family hard sweated money is with you and you don't want to spend it in something you are unsure you will enjoy), or bike half an hour against the wind to the nearest slightly bigger city, middelburg. Which although it has more variety, again, it will hardly have the prettyness which your eyes desperately seek, and there is no way you find motivation for getting yourself pretty to face 30 minutes ride which you will be tearing up because of the wind.


Although it might not appear, I already started to unconsciously describe the culture shock, as I already said that my eyes are seeking for beauty. The villages here are considered pretty for many people, it just doesn't feel like in my eyes as it is a colored, unfamiliar standard of beauty. Which is enforced into my eyes, which miss the whiteness in the streets, the light, and the small sculptures on the buildings.
I come to dislike the buildings and streets, not because of what they are, but because of what they aren't.
Which is precisely what the cultural shock is.

Since cultural shock is quite a broad topic, I'll just let it end this here. I'll come back to it later on another day which I'll also describe the feelings I get from the different cons.