Beginnings are hard. The difficulty of a given beginning is complicated by the number of concurrent beginnings and their size; thus a new job with the same home is difficult, but manageable, as is a new home with the same job.
Then there is changing both your job and your home (or even worse, your perceived home).
Throw in the temporary removal of your support system (spousal and even furry).
Add in linguistic and cultural differences, a hearty serving of fatigue, and top it with the knowledge that things were comfortable, that they were going well, that they would have continued to go well for a while.
Walk into the grocery store (closed on Sundays, the savagery of it all). Feel vaguely shocked that you didn’t have to swipe a card or feel like a dumbass as the doorman tells you how to get in to your own hotel. Start reading labels. Boeuf: no. Jambòn: no. Poulet: ok. Perrier: I might just starve to death, but dammit, I now have six liters of Perrier, so to hell with it. “Read” the names of the aisles while wondering how the illiterate function back home. Contemplate the fact that those are words on the signs. I can not, however, read those words. I can read, but I can’t read these words. Language seems almost primal, even reading does, but only when it’s your language. Language and reading, which I can not conceive of being unable to do, is fake. It’s all so fake, just some bullshit a herd of people agree upon.
Turn a corner; wonder if chips is a cognate.
Fuck yeah: pop chips. I understand these. I know what these are.
Oh christ. Now to figure out how to get through the cashier.
Fezzik In Paris 