My Culture Difference

I was born in Lima, Peru and moved to NYC when I was 10 years old. It was a major culture shock for my family and I. At first the language barrier was an obstacle as there is so much slang that kids use, so at times it made it hard learning the proper way of pronouncing words. Mostly all of the kids in my school thought that I was Mexican or Puerto Rican because I spoke "Spanish" and had no idea what Peruvian was. I immediately noticed that kids were eating  chips, sweets and sodas which back home my mother would never pack for me. Soon I was becoming Americanized and eating McDonalds after school like the others. I interact daily with people from France at work and they tell me that in France you work during work hours and once you go home that is it, you put your work behind, specially in the weekend. And then off course they have an envious vacation & benefits plan. Another huge cultural difference that I have notices would be the way people treat their family pets. Specially for dogs, as they are treated like if they are part of the family. In Peru, the rate of stray dogs is quite large and people just do not put as much time and money as if they were another child or sibling. Here we treat our dog like a queen buying her clothes and organic food and my family back home just does not see why....