On the first day, everything goes well. The food, the family, the sunshine, the prices in the bar, which are still half what they are in Geneva or Zurich. On the second day, you start to notice things. Not big things, just little ones. The restaurant where you’ve arranged to meet at two serves the meal at a quarter to three, and nobody seems to think it’s odd. The clerk at a service counter has his mobile on the table and glances at it whilst explaining something to you. The rubbish lorry passes by at eleven o’clock at night, making a noise that, in your Swiss block of flats, would have resulted in a note in your letterbox and possibly a residents’ meeting.
And at some point during the journey, something strange happens to you: you’re no longer sure who has changed. Whether it’s Spain or whether it’s you. You’ve been living for years in a system where things work in a specific way, where timetables are what they are, where the neighbour on the second floor knows exactly when the night-time quiet begins. That system has reshaped what your brain considers normal. This isn’t a criticism of Spain. It’s simply what happens when you live abroad for a long time: your frame of reference shifts.
But the opposite happens too. Suddenly you find yourself missing the noise. The waiter who sits down with you for a moment to have a chat because it’s quiet seems more human to you than the efficient service at that restaurant in Bern. The pace of life here, which you always found chaotic, now seems vibrant to you. That your family, whom you didn’t see as often as you’d have liked, turns out to be the centre of everything. That at some point during that holiday, without even planning it, you find yourself thinking that you could live here too.
Many of the group are on holiday in Spain at the moment. This is exactly the sort of time when these things happen. Culture shock isn’t just something you experience when you arrive in Switzerland. It happens when you come back too, even if it’s only for a month.