The Background of My Excursion

Right now I am in high school and around the age of being an exchange student. I know this may sound weird, but I have been volunteering and meeting exchange students since I was about 7. I became good friends with a lot of people from every corner of the world and ever since I was little I have literary dreamed of becoming an exchange student. Everyone would always ask me where I wanted to go and I always said Germany, it seemed so cool (and still does).

I volunteer with exchange students like these, one of them is even my exchange student from Norway!

About 5 years ago my family hosted an exchange student from Norway and since then I have fallen in love with everything about Norway. Over those 5 years he has come and visited us and we have even gone and visited him. Because of him, I now want to be an exchange student to Norway. Last year my family hosted an exchange student from Italy. We are exactly 360 days apart from each other and we quickly became great friends. He says he's coming to visit soon, so I am really excited!

I realized that next year (my senior year) would be my last chance to live out my dream of becoming an exchange student so since November I have been filling out applications and working my way to becoming an exchange student. My first choice was Norway, my second Germany, and my third was always changing. I started applying for two different programs. A program to go to Norway for school for a year and a full ride scholarship to go to Germany for year. The Germany program is very highly rated and they were only taking 50 students out of 12 states to go. I had to write essays, make conference calls, and have personal and group interviews in my city and anxiously wait to find out if I would make it. If I didn't get then I would still go to Norway for the year instead (I had everything planned out).

Finally I found out that I had been accepted and I was one of the 50 people! I was so happy! However about a week before that the Norway organization (which is also connected to the Germany scholarship) told me that I would not be allowed to be an exchange student to Norway do to medical reasons. This made literary made me cry (I was sobbing my eyes out). I knew that because I couldn't go to Norway I also wouldn't be able to Germany. It felt like all my hard work and stress I had put into it was worthless and all my hopes for my dream were shattered. (Sorry I apologize for making that sound extremely sappy).

After I pulled myself together my mom talked me into a summer program. She did a summer program to Mexico. I had always pushed myself away from summer programs because I felt like they weren't the same kind of experience and I wouldn't be as close with my host family. The summer program seemed to be like my only other option so I took it. I chose to go to Paraguay and work with an exchange-community service project. At first I was a little unsure of it because I had hoped on Europe and it is in South America and it's just for a month and a half so I won't get to be there as long as I wish I could be.

Now that I am going to Paraguay I am so excited! I'm even more excited then when I thought I was going to Norway or Germany. I know it's not the same as them but I don't care, I know I will have the time of my life and I CANNOT wait to hope on a plain and meet my host family! This blog is all about me and fulfilling m dream by going to Paraguay. Even though my trip hasn't officially started yet, I'll still fill you in on my life now, what I'm doing to get ready to go, and once there I'll let you know how much fun I am having!

I hope you enjoy my adventure...¡Hasta Luego!