Introduction (00:00)
Hi. I’m Kayla Wilder, and you’re listening to Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. This podcast is about the amazing ways that God shapes us and the exciting moments on the journey. If your heart is ready for renewal and discovery, this space is for you.
Hi, hello and welcome to episode 5! I’m so glad to be here with you all.
Um, thanks for joining me. No matter where you are, if you are in your home, if you’re on the way to work, if you’re eating lunch right now or listening during the morning. Thank you for thank you for being here.
Culture Shocks (00:42)
Uh. Culture shocks. Let’s talk about culture shocks. Uh, I wanted to just get a little bit into the things that, taught me so much, and this is the European edition. Um, because it’s really crazy like you, you’ll see on like a TV show maybe, or in a movie that things are a little different over there. Like the way that they drink coffee or the way that they cook their food.
But it’s not, I don’t know, like it doesn’t look that different, like, or at least it didn’t to me. But getting over there and experiencing it firsthand is like, no, like this actually is different. Like the way that they do things here, it really is different. And it takes it takes a little bit of time getting used to. So, uh, yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s just go right in. Let’s just get started.
City Living (1:55)
Um, the first thing that I noticed was the time that businesses open. And this is like all over Europe. Like it’s in, uh, it’s in Central Europe, it’s down in Greece, it’s over in the Iberian Peninsula. Like things are closed.
Things like they have their rest over there, um, on Saturdays and Sundays, but I think Sundays that was like the biggest thing was like, you, if you need something, you have to make sure that you get it before the weekend because people, they like to enjoy, right? They like to enjoy and they take, uh, they take such a bigger, um, it’s more prevalent in their culture than it is for Americans. Um, and it’s in the mornings too, and that’s just on the weekday.
There was one time where I was going to pick up a rental car and I think I had to be there… I think I had to get… I think I had to get the car at like 9 a.m. um, and I had to take the bus. Public transportation systems and a lot of these countries are perfect. Absolutely stunning. Um, the only things that work like 24/7 or not the only businesses that work 24/7, but there are very few things are 24/7.
Public transportation is. So that’s, that’s 1 nice thing. But, um, yeah, I was going to pick up a rental car and I had to be there like 9 a.m. and so I’m walking around, um, I’m walking around outside. I’m on my way to, to, uh, the train station and or the bus station. And, you know, in the United States, you know, if you’re walking around and it’s 8 a.m., you know, the coffee shops are open. Um, you know, there’s, you know, all of the, not all of the stores, but, you know, like Walmart is open, things are they’re they’re opening up or maybe target won’t be open until like 9 a.m.
But like you get what I’m saying, right? Like everything is everything is picking up. Like it’s time.
Me now, um, uh, I the wind was, was, was, was blowing and it was such a nice, cool, like fall day and, uh, the streets were empty. It was me and it was me and the seagulls. Like I was out there by myself. And it was shocking. It was so shocking. But it just goes to show you that people, they take like a lot of, um, they take their rest seriously. Like they take it seriously. We definitely, we definitely could learn something from them.
But long story short, it’s, it’s, it’s nice, like on your way to where you’re going. If you have like an early morning appointment, you might think that you want to stop, I don’t know, you might think that you want to stop somewhere and get something to eat and like, you know, maybe do like a little bit of people watching and just like rest and, you know, make it like a chill, you know, a chill, like a chill morning stroll, you know what I mean?
Um, and in this way, it’s not, I mean, it is because it’s still a nice morning, but, you know, there’s no snacking and there’s no, you know, there’s, you know, no running into people.
It’s just you and God. It’s just you and Him and y’all are on your way to where you’re going.
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And, um, you know, you have, you have the nature to soak in and you have, uh, the quietness of the city. You have a very, like, still calm, peaceful sense of being. And it’s, it’s so refreshing, so refreshing. I’d say give it a try. Give it a try. Uh, wherever you go. Just early, you know, 8 a.m. 8 a.m. morning stroll. And I say 8 a.m. because this is this is the other beautiful thing.
Um, I specifically saw this in Barcelona, but I’m sure it’s true in other towns. Uh, when it is time for the shops to open and most of the shops are small, like they’re not giant, um, like chain, uh, or is it retail businesses? These are all like mom and pop shops and they’re all lined up next to one another in the city. And what they do, uh, while they’re in the middle of opening is they fill up these buckets full of soapy, warm, bubbly, lemony water, and they go out onto the cobblestones right in front of their doors, and they mop them down, or they toss the water all over it. They clean it up.
And so as the city is waking up, The first thing that you smell is the croissants. You smell the coffee. Them starting it up. And then while you’re on the street, it just smells like bubbles floating through the air. And it’s just Heavenly. It’s Heavenly.
People love their spaces and they love their homes. And speaking of which, another awesome thing that I saw you could be like walking home after, you know, spending a night out at a bar and it’ll be like, I don’t know, 3 a.m. that’s when the street sweepers come. That’s when the street sweepers come. Um, and like the garbage trucks, they’re out there while everybody’s asleep where nobody can see them.
And so it’s like, as long as you move your car off the street, you know, you’ll go to sleep that night, you’ll wake up the next morning and it’s like, whatever, whatever happened, you know, like if everybody was out that night and, you know, like a bunch of garbage got thrown into the street or like, if it, I don’t know, like you never know, you know, you never know, you never know, like what the night you will bring unless you’re out there, you’ll never see it.
You wake up in the morning and it’s like, oh, look like they, they cleaned it up. Yeah. It’s, it’s really awesome. We need something like that. We need something like that in the States. Tell me what y’all think. Tell me what um, tell me in the comments, which like one of these culture shocks or all of them do you think would be best for us? Okay.
Country Reputations (8:32)
Yeah, that does bring me on to the next one is how different things are between countries, because that that’s the thing, like in the United States, like we don’t do, I mean, we might because I’m from Texas, right? So we do have this a little bit where it’ll be like one state versus the other, you know. We’ll. We’ll, like, I don’t know, like, you know, Texans we’re like, “Everything’s bigger and better here.” Or like, if you’re maybe from California, it’s, it’s like, you know, “Our state is super diverse and, you know, we’re over here on the ocean.”
Yeah. So we, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t do that like too, too much over here, but over there that, that stuff is, is serious. It’s serious. And it’s expected too, um. Like just the reputations that the countries have. Like the thing about Germany being super efficient, you know, like that’s really what they do. Like they really are an efficient people and you feel it when you get there.
Um, I remember I stepped off of the plane at the Frankfurt airport and, and I had come, I had come from Spain, and I just… In Spain everything is very chill, you know what I mean? It’s very it’s very… Just go with the flow and enjoy your time. And if you get there on time, great. But if you don’t, great. You know, we’re gonna let you in anyway, right? I got off the plane at Frankfurt and it was like, “This is what we’re doing and this is where we’re going.”
But it wasn’t militant, if you know what I mean? Like it wasn’t like, you know, “Go this way!” It was like, “This is the obvious correct thing to do. So do it.” Um, I, I needed to find the restroom. And I was worried because in other countries, I, you know, I’d had trouble finding it. And so I’m like, oh, here I am, you know, I don’t know, I barely know how to say bless you in German. Like, what am I going to do?
But I get over to the baggage claim and I’m worrying about it. And I was thinking to myself, “Well, like, where, where would I put a bathroom if I had designed an airport?” And I look over to my right and literally, it’s right there. Restroom. What a relief. Right? Like it’s, I don’t know. And that might not be the best example, but that’s just to say that Germany is very they’re very they’re very intuitive and things just make sense. You know what I mean?
Like this is this is where it should be versus like, hmm, what else is a good country… the Netherlands. I, oh man, I had an overnight layover. I didn’t think twice about it when I booked the flight, but when I got, when I got to Amsterdam, I was terrified. I was like, what, what, why did I do this? Um, their language is not like German, by the way. Their language is not like German! I thought that I’d be able to.
Not saying that I can read German, but, you know, like as an English speaker, you know, you see certain words and it’s like, oh, okay, that’s what that is. Um, yeah. In Netherlands, it’s not the same. It’s not the same at all at all. For me, I think, I think my first, my first impression was like, it sounded like Simlish a little bit. Like I couldn’t, I couldn’t make out a single word. And then oh my goodness.
And then I had the, um, the Google Translate, you know, how Google Translate has the, uh, the camera on the phones? And if you just hold it up, it’ll translate the word right there. Right? I was doing that and it wasn’t giving me like English words like it. It was, you know, and, you know, I had it on Dutch to English, but when it was up there, it just didn’t it didn’t translate or it did. And it was like a British word of, of, you know, it was the British English word.
And so I just, I was just walking around and I didn’t know what to do. And the hotel that I had booked was, um, I don’t know, it was a few miles from the airport, not too far away. I didn’t know how I was going to get there. And so I ended up just walking around until I saw I saw an air stewardess. Um, she was getting on, she was getting on the bus and she looked like me. She looked like me. And my first thought was, oh, Hallelujah, thank You, Father God.
And I ran or I didn’t run, but I like I picked up my I picked up my my feet. Right. She’s she turned and saw me and she immediately stopped and gave me the most welcoming smile and with the most perfect English. She told me where to go. So I get on the right bus. But then I don’t know, you know if this is the correct bus.
So I go over to the driver and I ask him and he gives me this entire like explanation. “Yeah, this is what we’re doing. This is where we’re going.” I didn’t understand most of it, but I did know that I was headed to the correct hotel. It was just. You know what I mean? Like you get you get to a place and you’re terrified, right?
Like it’s you don’t know. You don’t know where you’re going and you don’t know what you’re doing. But at least in the Netherlands, they’re so kind, they’re so kind and they’re so helpful. And that’s not to say that they aren’t in other countries.
But in other countries, I’ve found that they’re very direct. You know what I mean? “This is what you do. This is where you go.” And if you can’t figure it out, I don’t know me personally, my embarrassment at the time. Like I couldn’t ask a question a third time. Like, where do I go? Okay. Sorry. Could you explain it one more time?
And if I didn’t get it on that second time, it would be like, okay, you know what? We’re just gonna, we’re just gonna walk around and see if we get it, you know what I mean? So yeah, that that difference between like how, how much of people’s time they’re, they’re giving over to help you out is it’s like, it’s what’s the word? Like blazingly apparent? Like it’s, it’s so, it’s so obvious that you can’t not notice it. Yeah. Okay.
Drinking Culture (15:13)
This is, this is the last one. This is the last one. And then, um, I’ll wrap up this episode. Uh, the drinking culture. I mentioned this in episode 4, I think, uh, but it’s the most exciting thing. This is about Spain specifically, specifically, I didn’t, I didn’t have like opportunities to do. Oh yes, I did. Well, I had like a mimosa in Greece, but that’s not really.
So this is about Spain specifically because I didn’t really have many opportunities. I want to say to do like early morning drinking, right? In Spain, there is no such thing as a 5 o’clock rule. They don’t do that. They don’t do that. You could be, you know, it could be 12 in the afternoon and you’re walking somewhere and there will be a restaurant full of people, indoor seating, outdoor seating, and everybody has a glass of wine. It’s totally it’s totally normal.
And I remember talking to my friends about it one time and they were like, yeah, like, and these are my, my European friends. They’re like, “Yeah, like we, we don’t really do that. We thought you Americans had like drinking problems. Like, why are you so strict with your rules?” And I was like, well, maybe I don’t know. Um, I don’t know.
And so yeah, I started, I started giving it a try and it’s yeah, it’s it’s nice. That’s not to say, you know, that I drink much. I’m almost purely on wine right now. Um, but it’s, it’s nice over there. It’s nice to just sit down and feel like, oh, like, you know, I’m gonna have, I don’t know, like you for me, like a white wine goes well with like clean eating, right?
So I’m gonna have, I’m gonna have a salad with like maybe a little bit of chicken, right? And I want, I don’t know, I want, I want, I want, I want, excuse me, I want a white wine to go with it. Well over there, if that’s how you’re feeling at lunchtime, then just have your wine.
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Um, it’s a different life. It’s a different life over there. It’s chill. It’s it’s sweet. They’re not, they’re not lying when they say it’s sweet.
Um, all of the worries about like your habits and what it says about your health and everything else. It just, it just goes away. And it reminds me of, uh, Proverbs 14:30. I mentioned, I mentioned this one in the last episode, “A heart at peace gives life to the body,” which is so true. It’s like, I don’t know, and I’m not trying to like start like a drinking revolution or anything, but I am saying that like, I don’t know, I think we worry a lot.
I think we worry so much in the United States. I think we’re so like conscious about our health. And that’s not a bad thing, right? Because our bodies are temples. But I don’t know, I think I think I think we could stand to loosen up a little bit. I think I think we could stand to, um, I don’t know, just take it a little bit easier.
It’s a heart at peace that gives life to the body. The heart has to come first. And I think, or at least what I learned over there in Spain is that if you’re always worried about your mental health and your physical health, and if it’s always like, you know, journaling about what you ate today and like, you know, always clocking, um, you know, always tracking, uh, your heart rate and your steps and everything.
I don’t know, I think it just, I don’t know, for me at least it added a lot of stress and being over there, it being over there, their culture and the way that they do things just made it easier on easier on my mind. So I don’t know, I, I don’t know, I would recommend that I don’t know what I would recommend. Yeah. So I think we could, I think we could, I don’t know, dare I say it, take off the Apple Watches. I don’t know, we might. Um yeah. So there’s that.
Heart Talk (19:40)
And then there’s also Galatians 3:28, which is “There’s neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
And it’s so true because in spite of all of these culture shocks, in spite of everything that like, you know, threw me off because it seriously threw me off when I first got there. Like you go into a country and you know that things are going to be different. But no, like you’re in a new world.
You’re in a place where they don’t speak the same language as you. They don’t stand the same way as you. They don’t sit the same way. Um, they don’t, you know what I mean? Nothing is the same. They are completely different plus these extra things. And so, you know, one, one extra little “This is how we eat our appetizers—” it it’s like a drop in the bucket of how out of place do I feel right now?
But, um, there’s no Jew nor Gentile in Jesus. We’re all. We’re all one. You know what I mean? And our culture and our countries, when we’re standing before the Father, were all His children. And I think that remembering that, um, I think they’re remembering that makes for the learning experience, the immersion, because that’s what it is. It’s learning by immersion, right? Like you’re really in it.
The immersion experience is just more pleasant. It’s a lot more pleasant. It’s a lot more comfortable. Um, something might throw you off or might like something might be surprising to you, but it’s like a happy kind of surprising.
Like, oh, like that’s, that’s new. And I don’t know, like, I think that might be coming with me. That might be, that might be coming home with me. Um, that’s what I think. Yeah.
So I wanted to hear your thoughts on culture shocks from the places that you’ve been to. Please let me know in the comments or if you would like to share your testimony, please email us at info@amourabroad.com. Um, tell me tell me what you experienced, that was, I don’t know, super eye opening.
If it was very enlightening or challenging, maybe you took a lot away from it. Whatever happened, you know what I mean? Whatever, however it happened, let me know. Let us know. Um, and I’d love the opportunity to share it and maybe even talk about maybe even talk about it here on the podcast.
Prayer (22:39)
So yeah, that’s, that’ll be, that’ll be it for this episode. Thank you for listening in.
And yeah, no matter where you are, except if you’re in the car, uh, go ahead and bow your head and close your eyes. And we will close this episode out with a prayer.
God, thank You for love. Thank You for community, family, and for building a world where we can all come together. Give us the courage to trust, grace for patience, and eyes to learn of Your goodness wherever You take us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Outro (23:13)
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. If you enjoyed today’s topic, please share it with a friend, and remember to subscribe to the newsletter for more travel, faith, and love stories.
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