I fully expected to feel several moments of culture shock as I settled into Florence, but what I didn’t expect was that my first one would be in a supermarket.

The first time I walked into a local supermarket, I felt like I was playing a game without the rulebook. Everything felt different: the layout, the labels written in Italian, and the sea of unfamiliar products. After navigating through, I got in line to checkout. The cashier looked at my apples, said something in Italian then shook her head angrily, pushed my apples off to the side, and moved onto the next customer, leaving me standing there in total confusion. Feeling embarrassed, I left the line, racking my brain with an explanation. Eventually, another American shopper came up to me and explained that Italian grocery stores require the customer to weigh the fruit themselves. After weighing my apples and returning to the checkout line, I had survived my first Italian grocery store adventure.

This was just the first of many more humbling moments, and, as a result, I’ve learned valuable lessons in observation and adaptability. I think one of the beautiful aspects of studying abroad is being able to immerse myself in Italian culture enough to learn nuanced differences in even the most trivial moments.