The hardest part of my first day in Barcelona was stepping into the Lidl next to my apartment.
I was jet-lagged, missing my family, and struggling to recall the Spanish I learned in high school. Despite this, my day was going surprisingly well. I loved my apartment, I was getting along with my roommates, and I was fresh off a fantastic first dinner trying tapas I’d never heard of before. Then we stopped at the grocery store to pick up breakfast for the next morning.
This store was organized in an unintuitive, vastly different way than the markets I was accustomed to in the United States. The milk and yogurt are stored together downstairs, while the cheese and other dairy products are upstairs. Sodas and wine are on the left of the building, but all other drinks are kept aisles away on the right. The labels are written in Catalan. The self-checkout asks a million questions I don’t understand.
The few moments I spent in this unfamiliar grocery store sent me into a spiral for the rest of the night. When I returned to my apartment and went to my room to sleep off the jet lag, I couldn’t help but think that coming to Spain was a huge mistake. Despite how exhausted I’d been all day, I couldn’t manage to sleep at all that first night. Instead, I found myself staring at my calendar, counting down the days until I could fly back home.
When it was time to get to school the next morning, I was still on edge. But as I conquered the biggest changes, like finding my classes and learning the metro system, the smaller moments gradually felt more manageable. I started remembering where each grocery store keeps their bread. What time of day the shops close for siesta, which pharmacies carry which products, which alleyways to cut through to shorten my walk to class. Though these small but frequent moments of culture shock were the most unexpected, they were also the most rewarding to work through.
Adapting to these moments of each day has ultimately made me feel more immersed in Spanish culture and more confident in my ability to navigate life outside of my comfort zone. While I still experience new moments of culture shock each day, I feel better prepared to handle the emotions that come with it. The challenges it brings are no longer overwhelming, but a welcome challenge to face each day that makes Barcelona feel a little more like home.
Katie Robey
Fall 2025
IAU - Barcelona, Spain
Columbian College of Arts and Science
Political Communication & Marketing Double Major