You have to live it !

“Journey in an Unknown Culture”
My name is Brayans Stegmayer, I`m a Chilean and this is my story…
Sometimes life changes, sometimes you can get a wonderful opportunity, and you get to know something that changes your way to see life. All that happened to me. At that time I was only 16 years old and I went to United States for exchange for a year, obviously in that age you still immature and you aren´t able to understand that this experience would change the rest of your life.
I still remember the day when I arrived to United States; I was so excited about the American culture, remembering the movies and try to see if it was the same that I watched in the movies. My first problem was the language, everyone speaking English was a big problem because I didn´t know any English at that age, only my native and precious Spanish. After solving that problem I had a new one, a big one, try to figure out the differences between the Americans and the Chileans (or Latinos) like the distance for talking with someone else, words that you can´t say, how to treat adults, seniors, teenagers , communication, body expression , and any kind of movement that you can imagine. It is amazing to see and understand the differences between two cultures, in this case the north and south, the English and the Spanish, gringos and Latinos, United States and Chile. In any experience, and this was the case too, you get the chance to meet know people from that culture, I think this is the better way to get to know the culture, you can share stories, adventures, learn how they think, anyways, you learn about their culture.
Learning about the culture isn´t just talking and sharing with people, you also have to travel around the country to see how they live, you have to visit their cities, country, their big structures, the museums, monuments, their entertainment, and any big tourist destination is mandatory. It was my case travelling for the east coast, Disney World it was all the entertainment that you can get, Washington D.C with their amazing structures trying to show the state power, lawyers everywhere and a clean and structured city, New York city with their huge buildings, millions of people, shopping’s everywhere and of course visiting “Times square” and “empire state”, awesome places to see, Boston with their beautiful gardens and universities like Harvard, New Hampshire with their lakes and field and many others places.
A wonderful and successful travel, that I´ve been trying to do every year traveling to some countries in South America like Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and my own country, Chile. An experience that I would like to do in Turkey this year, travelling and writing about it, making a difference, and showing to everyone else what can this country offer to the world.