Pauline

Exchange is everything. It´s wonderful, amazing, the most painful time in your life and still one of the best. It´s feeling 3 feelings at the same time and laughing about the most stupid things in the world. Beiing so hurt for one moment and then having the time of you life in the other. Exchange is trying to find out who you are and in the end accepting it because nobody is perfect. It´s finding out who your friends are and especially who you want to be with…also finding out who the people are back at home that are important to you. Exchange is making friends from all over the world. Exchange is also crying because you thaught you have fallen in love with this amazing person and then realizing you can´t reach him and you two could become real good friends. Exchange is going to an all-you-can-eat china restaurant and eating until you have to hold your belly. It´s taking pictures in the middle of the street while a car is standing right behind you honking. Exchange is planning a diet which you are keeping for one day and then you decide to buy a twix at the next store. It´s about going for `trick or treat´ in your neighbourhood even though you are already fifteen. Exchange is about knowing what real friendship is even after your time abroad. Exchange is about having a pillow fight in a hotel room until you get a cramp of laughing so hard. It´s learning more about different cultures and understanding them. It´s about dealing with situations like changing the hostfamily and sometimes about rather thinking about yourself than about others because it´s better for you. Exchange is sitting with your friends at the bakery for hours and hours and you still can talk about the most random stuff. Exchange is having the worst and the best time at the same time. It´s about worrying because one of your friends got an appendix surgery. It´s also doing things that you would never do at home no matter of what kind. Exhange is falling in love with the hostbrother of you best friend and about not beeing brave enough to tell her because you are afraid that you could lose her. It´s about finding out that you´d rather spend christmas at home and that sometimes homesickness helps you to remind yourself how important your family actually is to you and that you should show it to them more often. Exchange making friends on your flight back home and knowing that you will miss them even though you just know them for a few hours. It´s having a white blank page and filling it in with all your experiences, memories and emotions. Exchange is tearful, amazing, sad, wonderful. And exchange is something you will never forget. The worst thing about it is that you will never feel the same feeling again that you felt during your exchange. It will always be different no matter how often you visit your friends or how often you visit the country you have fallen in love with. Exchange has also a time after and you have to try to fit into your life before your exchange. For you everything will be different but for the people around you everything will stay the same. You have to learn how to cope with that even though it´s not easy. It´s all about going your own way except that others have a whole lot more time for that. Everybody´s exchange is different and the most important point is that you can´t compare it with others, you are the only person who can change what happens during your exchange!