Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colourful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all it's constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.
Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way.
Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know what it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.
Exchange is learning to trust. Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you have the strength to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends. Trust that everything's going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.
Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about the strange people, the strange food, the strange language. About why you're here and not back home. About what it's going to be like once you come back home. About how your friends are going to react when you see them again. About who's hanging out where this weekend. At first who's inviting you at all. And in the end, where you're supposed to go, when you're invited to ten different things. About what everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is.
Thinking about what's right and what's wrong. About how stupid you were without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that english essay is due, even though your marks don't count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone's place until midnight. Someone you didn't even know a few months ago. Thinking in a different language and a different way altogether. And about what that person just said…
Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you're an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people, who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people who have contributed to your year in some way. And those people who invited you into their homes, their lives. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.
Exchange is music. New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that makes you laugh and remember a moment when that song was put on repeat and you sang as loud as you could with your friends. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you've ever met. It is site reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.
Exchange is uncomfortable. It's feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It's talking to people you don't like or don't understand. It's trying to be nice and happy all the time. It's bugs… and bears. It's cold, freezing cold. It's homesickness, it's awkward silence and it's feeling guilty because you didn't talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.
Exchange is great. It's feeling the connection between you and your host family grow.. It's knowing in which cupboard Nutella is. It's meeting people from all over the world. It's having a place to stay in almost every country of the world. It's cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It's seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.
It's getting 5 new families. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world and from all around the world!
Exchange is exchange students. The most amazing people in the whole wide world! Those people from everywhere, that know exactly how you feel and those people who become your best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4 times during your year. The people, who take almost an hour to say goodbye too every time. Those people with their blazers full of pins. All over the world.
Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing, wild, beautiful country. And with your home country.
Exchange is frustrating. Things you can't do, and things you don't understand. Things you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you mean.
Exchange is understanding.
Exchange is unbelievable.
Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be, but much, much better.
Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt. And it's also one of the hardest. Without a doubt.
Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be apart of you. It is something no one back home will ever truly understand.
Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they're from. That there are great people and mean people everywhere. And that is only depends on you, how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year. It's realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it's trying to explain that to your parents.
Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, and laughing at the same time. It's a turmoil of every emotion possible.
Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can't understand unless you've been through it.
Exchange is not a year in your life. It's a life in one year.
