Reverse culture shock: Myth or reality?

Reality.

My trip back to America was as follows:
Depart St. Petersburg at 6:10 am. Arrive Frankfurt 7:35 am (or something like that).
Depart Frankfurt 10:30 am. Arrive JFK 12:50 pm.
Depart JFK 2:30 pm. Arrive Boston/Logan 4:30 pm.
Take Dartmouth Coach home.

I was miserable on the St. Petersburg to Frankfurt flight. Americans were all around me, more than I had seen at one time in months. I clung to the Russians, desperate for any bits of conversation I might overhear. In Frankfurt, I almost tried to get on a flight to Moscow but eventually lay down and watched Heroes, season 2. In Russian. Once I got to JFK, I was so overwhelmed by everything being in English that I had to sit in a corner and listen to Tchaikovsky so as to relax. I kept snapping my head to look at someone speaking English; it occurred to me that everyone was speaking English, but I was so accustomed to an English-speaker being an anomaly that I couldn't help it.

Since that miserable 24 hour commute (during which I slept a total of 2 hours out of 48), I have managed to readjust back to life in America, but some things still surprise me.

For example, my best friend and I went to the Farmer's Market, held on the Dartmouth Green, last Wednesday. I couldn't get over the absence of drunk people, the abundance of organic food, and that we were able to take our shoes off and sit on the grass without receiving any looks of dismay.

Yesterday, while walking home, I encountered construction on my street blocking my path. A friendly policeman said he would stop traffic for me so that I wouldn't have to (gasp!) cross the street and walk on the sidewalk. I responded, "that's ok, I live right up there," to which he nodded and resumed work (which, in this case, was watching the construction workers with a look of barely disguised glee). Such an ordinary exchange was, for me, extraordinary. To those who haven't spent considerable time abroad, it is difficult to explain just how easy things are in America. I can guess what would happen in Russia: there would be no cop supervising the construction workers and I would be almost run over by a car. Or someone would yell at me ("Devushka! DEVUSHKA! DEVUSHKA!!!") In any case, the mere simplicity of this exchange was astounding.