My Cross-Cultural Experiences

1. First cross-cultural experiences that I have had in my life * The first culture clash I had was on my first trip to Germany. It was when my friend and me went on a ski trip with our school. We arrived a town called Innsbruck where we stayed at a hotel. I got very surprised when I first got there, the first thing I recognized was the houses they lived in, they all had names on their houses. It was painted on their front wall. This didn’t make any sense for me but I was told that it was because some of the houses where family houses.
And that they rented out rooms. At the same day when we went for dinner at our hotel we got served 4 meals. We first got soup, then salad, the main meal and dessert. This didn’t make any sense for me, because back home I was not used to get 4 meals at a restaurant. That night I went to take a shower but I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the water in the shower. There were three knobs above the tub, so I assumed that they were for hot, warm, and cold water. I twisted the “warm” knob, but no water came out.
Then I tried the two others, and I did get some water, but it was either too cold or too warm. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone for help with such a simple thing, so after making several unsuccessful attempts, I gave up. I had a cold bath instead. 2. Second cross-cultural experiences that I have had in my life – The second experience I had was when I first visited the United States. When I first arrived Westminster College I was so excited and scared at the same time.

I have never lived in a community called “dorms” before and I was not sure how it would work and I had no clue how my roommates would be. The first thing I recognized was how much they talked and their conversation was at a very loud level. The next day I recognized how nice the people were, they smiled and they even said hi to me. I got shocked when people even hold the door open when I was far away they would stand there and wait for me.
When we went out for dinner that night I was also surprised when I ordered a coke, when I finished the coke the waitress came out with another one I got confused and told her that it has to be a misunderstanding because I didn’t ordered another one. She told me that it was free refuel. I felt kind of stupid, and my roommates started laughing at me because they thought it was funny. I told my roommates that in Norway we have to pay for the refuel and after that they taught me more about their culture so I could be more able to adapt to their culture.