Unfortunately for me, being an African American student studying abroad in Europe, the most prominent cultural difference that I experienced (not only in Lisbon but other cities I traveled too) is racial ignorance towards people of African descent. In my 22 years if living in the United States I had never experienced as much racism in my life as I did living in Europe. The ignorance that people have towards people of African descent is unbelievable. Other than that, another cultural difference is the fact that children usually never move out of their parent’s house until marriage. Since my senior year in high school I have always been living on my own. It was very hard for me to get used to living in a house under someone else’s rules but my own. In my house in the states my mom and her fiancé don’t eat dinner with the children. In Portugal I was expected to eat dinner with the family every night and dinners were usually longer than 1 hour.
At first, I believe I was in awe and didn’t really experience much culture shock. But as time went on I started to notice that my lack of freedom that I am used to having in the states was beginning to diminish. I’m so used to having free will, to leave and come as I please, and doing things on my own time. As time went on I started realizing that I was living under someone else’s rules and couldn’t do as much as I thought I would be able too. As time got closer to leaving it became bittersweet. I was excited to go home and get away from all the ignorance, however I did enjoy my time in Europe. Even though there were bad times there were definitely good times, and I will cherish the good times forever!
