Culture Shock and How to deal with it

 

 

What is culture shock?

Culture shock is the feeling of uncertainty, confusion or anxiety that people experience when visiting, doing business in or living in a society that is different from their own. Culture shock can arise from a person's unfamiliarity with local customs, language and acceptable behavior, since norms can vary significantly across cultures.

Eczema Diet

I am suffering from eczema for almost two years now. The skin specialist prescribed cortisone, topical steroid and antihistamine which helped for a while. However every time I finished the medication, my eczema came back again. The unbearable itch made me scratch abruptly. Scratching only worsened my skin condition, once I was prescribed antibiotics and cortisone cream contains antibiotic to cure the infection and to reduce the inflammation. I noticed that all these medicines only suppressed whatever causes my eczema beneath my skin.

Finding a Job in Florence #2

My attempts to find a job in Florence.

Sometimes I felt guilty to not having any job yet, maybe I haven't really tried THAT hard. 
This post is just my way to express my feeling.

Forgive Me - Forgive Me Not
 

I’ve been thinking to write and update this blog for these last two months, but somehow I found it hard to put aside sometimes to just start writing. I think I’ve spent or wasted too much time sitting in front of my computer, thinking to start writing, but instead of doing so, I was just roaming around checking some websites, checking my social networks, watching some music videos on Youtube, a few here and a few there ….all those somewhat brought no positive result and at the end just frustrated me. It’s a proof of how difficult and how bad I am in coordinating my will and my thought with my body and to bring them all together into actually doing some necessary actions.

Finding A Job in Florence #1

My attempts to find a job in Florence haven't really shown any positive result yet.

Just want to share my self-thought here :

Now, this has been in my thought even before I arrived here, it’s the question “what am I actually going to do here?” Specifically it’s about getting a certain job and earning some bucks. Don’t get me wrong, In term of life, It’s not like I desperately need money or else I would starve, no.  We are extremely blessed beyond measure in many ways, that’s for sure. This question in mind was rather based on my own requirement to myself; it’s like having an obligation as a wife and as a daughter and a pride of a woman, in how to make herself fully useful and respectfully effective.

Angels Are Around; Angel #3

Introducing angel #3 - David

I had to go to uffizi Anagrafe at Piazza della Liberta that day to get the Stato di Familia form, it's one of a step to make before applying the stay permitt from de Commune. I had a piece of paper with all steps I had to follow to get to the Piazza della Liberta and to find the uffizi. I had the address and it stated that the building is round and red. 

I checked my map and bus route to finally hopped into bus no 12 to get to the Liberta. I stopped at fermata Leonardo da Vinci #3 which was too far from where I should. I could have just stopped at Liberta but was so stuck to the route explanation that said I could stop at another bus stop which much closer to the uffici than Leonardo da Vinci#3. Anyway, I stopped and had to walk back to get to the piazza Liberta. 

I searched and looked around to find the red round building to find that all buildings at Liberta are square. I finally asked a magazine seller and he pointed to a road on the right side of the piazza, and it was not Liberta, it was a different road. I crossed the road and got there still puzzled of where the uffizi located exactly. When I turn on that road appointed by the magazine seller, I finally saw this round building and entered the yard. 

The Adventure of The Real Man's Wallet

Jos’ wallet was somehow left in the car of Alex, his friend, who gave us a nice ride to Italy and to Switzerland.  In short, Alex went back to Holland the next early morning while we were still sleeping and the wallet was also gone all the way back to Holland with him. We both just realized that before noon, when we were getting ready to walk in and around the village called Oberdiessbach near Thun. The wallet made us down a bit, kind of blaming ourselves or a bit of blaming each other for not checking the front seats of the car when we arrived and stepped out of the car last midnight. However, we still fortunate as God let us surrounded by good people and friends who helped us generously. So even though we had no cash on hand, somehow we still managed to enjoy our holiday and paid our spending. The wallet was also mailed from Utrecht to Florence by Alex, and it was arranged to arrive in Florence on a day or two after our arrival.

We got a series of numbers, a code from PostNL to trace the package. Guess what? It’s been two weeks since we arrived and yet we haven’t got the package, and sadly, we or it was more I, began to worry. It was a period of test of my patient endurance. Checked on PostNL site and asked the package under the code number at PosteItalia were also not helping. I prayed that night for God’s help to find the wallet coz I believe He knows where it is exactly. That day when Jos has his 1^st day meeting at school and I was home alone, browsing the site of PostNL, wondering why the package was remained untraced. Finally, I found the customer service number and gave the number to Jos when he came back home. Jos spoke with one of the customer service shortly after that, and got a new Italian code number to trace the package in Italy. He was also informed that instead of handled by PosteItalia, the package was handled by an Italian Int’l Courier Service called DPD.

We were so happy with the information, immediately googled for DPD site to find their phone number. The next challenge was when Jos calling the phone number and a female voice on the other side said,”Pronto…..bla…bla…bla….” all in Italian, and we both looked at each other’s face, confused, and started to giggled as we both understood NONE of what she just said.  

Italian Hospitality?

Diusir Pemilik Toko

Pagi ini suamiku sudah bertekad berangkat pagi ke kantor pos (PosteItalia) di tengah kota, dengan harapan staff kantor pos dapat membantu menemukan paket penting kiriman dari Belanda. Setelah selesai sarapan, dia langsung berangkat dengan sepedanya. Hari ini suhu di Florence 38 °C, lumayan dibanding kemaren yang 40°C.

Sayang sekali, setelah petugas kantor pos memeriksa kode kiriman paket, ternyata dinyatakan kode paket  tidak dikenal. Alhasil PosteItalia tidak dapat membantu menemukan paket tersebut. Dengan kecewa suamiku meninggalkan kantor pos dengan tangan kosong. Saat berjalan gontai, matanya tertumbuk pada etalase salah satu toko dasi, dompet dan asesoris pria lainnya yang menawarkan diskon. Suamiku langsung tertarik pada beberapa dasi yang ditawarkan, maka masuklah ia ke toko tersebut dan mulai memilih dasi.

Angels Are Around, Angel #2

How would you feel? If a good looking man in suits, drove his Mercedes, came to you and helped you dump your garbage..............

Another blessing we received was that we had our own garden, a backyard and a little shed. We knew there's a small balcony but we didn't expect the house would have a garden since it's a 2nd floor apartment. So we considered that as a surprised bonus from God.

All Goods Have Arrived and Unpacking Frenzy

After about a month of waiting for our personal effects to be released by customs in Milan. Finally we have all 23 boxes arrived in our house. 

Angels are Around Angel #1

It is not easy to live abroad as a foreigner where everything is new and often surprising. It is quite of an adventure, yet terrifying and challenging at the same time. It takes a while to adjust to so many different things such as culture, habit, rules, language, weather, environment, and people. Despite of fear whenever I thought of things that might come my way, as Christian, however, I believe that God will always help me. This is the time for me to really putting my believe into practice. I keep His promise, "I will never leave you nor forsake you!" I am learning how to live fully depend on Him and I amazed every time I found He helped me in His unique ways. It's so true that He remains faithful all the time. His love never fails. Somehow this thought came across my mind "angels are around" and every time I thought of it, I smiled and whispered,"Thank You, Lord! You are awesome!" 

Introducing angel no#1 - Angelo

After more than three weeks of waiting for Italian customs to release our personal goods, after all hassles of calling and submitting extra documents. Finally our personal effects of 23 boxes arrived in our house. 

Talk Like Italians

Talk Not Fight!

It’s a hot day in Florence that day, I checked my weather online gadget and it was 40°C! I was sitting behind my desk, trying to focus myself to learn and memorize some more new Italian vocabularies which until now are so hard to get into my old rusted brain.

Suddenly I heard cars engine stopped, car doors slammed, then men’s voices talked almost yelled to each other. Caused we lived on 2^nd floor of apartment building here in Italy, I could just popped my head out from the window behind me and looked down to the road in front of our place. Curious of what’s going on, that exactly what I did. I thought in a hot day like today, in the summer time in Italy, no wonder if most Italian is very temperamental. So I thought again, here they are, screaming and fighting right in front of our house. Great!