As soon as I arrived in Italy, I immediately noticed so much about the country. Depending on who you met or where you were, people were nice or stand-offish. I think it is due to the language barrier which is completely understandable. It was super helpful that we stayed in a smaller city which didn’t have a lot of tourists, so we were forced to learn and adapt even if it wasn’t the most comfortable situation. While we were there, we did take Italian classes and in one of our classes we were forced to speak to strangers all day at the local market while using the Italian we just used. I think it made most of us understand how tourists that come to America feel sometimes when you are visiting a country that you might not know their language and how difficult it is to adapt. I can say that my “culture shock” was whether it was students, host families or a waiter… they spoke a little English or spoke it really well. For most people in America, you don’t get a chance to learn another language until later in school, so it makes me wonder why our education system is like that when multiple countries learn our language and we don’t learn other languages at a young age and stay consistently.