How did your personal cultural preferences show up in your daily life in the US? And how do they here? How have they changed?

I am a Mexican American woman. I was born in the US to immigrant Mexican parents, and although I was born in California, I was raised in Mexico till I graduated high school and then moved again to the US. So having these two backgrounds and having these two different kinds of cultures and values help me have a more open and broad perspective. Living in the US it was really usual for me to go to Mexican or Hispanic stores, and encounter people with similar family backgrounds as me, so even though I was living in another country it was easy for me to still feel at home. After six years of living in the US, I could finally feel as if I belong and adopted some of the same mannerisms and social norms dictated by society. Now that I am in Germany I notice the contrast of living in a country in which not many people speak the same language as you nor share the same cultural link, for that reason I believe that I have struggled a little to adapt. However, it hasn’t been as hard as expected. Back in the US, I used to prefer going out to Mexican restaurants, or grocery shops where I could find the stuff that I need it to cook. Since moving here I had to adapt to the whole shopping experience, which to be honest is a little wild, cashiers are too fast when scanning the products and it is a different activity to experience. Since being here, I have learned that people do not like when you take too much time packing your groceries so either you have to be fast, get help from a friend or simply put everything you bought back in the cart, and then pack later on a side of the store, which for me is my favorite method and less stressing. Back in the US, I was used to the cashier packing my purchases and taking a really long time to scan but now I got a hang of it. This little change as insignificant to others is an important one for me because it is a result of an always-changing mindset that says that little by little I am adapting better to my new host country.