The Beginning

About a year and half ago I decided on something drastic. To leave home, my family, my school and my country to live with complete strangers on the other side of the world. How old was I when I made this sudden decision? 14 of course.

"Well it would be a great experience." said my parents. "Learning another language and culture. But wouldn't you miss us?" That didn't seem to phase me. I didn't see it as running away, but going out and searching for more. The idea was that I live with a family in another country, learn their language, experience their culture, go to their school. It seemed like the perfect thing for me.

The process to apply and prepare for it all took twice as long as the actual trip will. Lots of information to fill out, questions to be answered and decisions to be made. First question; Where will I go?

Intially I chose Spain without knowing anything about it. I started taking Spanish lessons and researching a bit about the country. I even had a Spanish pen pal. But then one day it dawned on me that I was really going to be by myself up there, in a country that speaks no English, a culture I have no connection with or really know about and a language I couldn't quite grasp. So then I changed my big decision. Holland. I think I'd rather go to Holland.

So we quit the Spanish classes, and I started taking up Dutch with my mother. Her parents, my Oma and Opa, came from Holland in the 1950's. Although my mother was born and grew up in Australia, she speaks Dutch well. There is no gene that connects a person to a certain language, and I was never spoken to in Dutch as a child, yet some how the language seemed to make sense, natural. In a short period of time I had learned a lot of Dutch, and that alone made me sure that I had made the right decision, and Holland was the place to go.

I recieved a scholarship worth $2,500, making me feel a little less guilty about the high cost of the trip. I wrote a letter to my future host family, and compiled photos with significance to my life. Sending them away, I couldn't keep the imagine of who my family might be out of my head. The trip was constantly on my mind. What it will be like, what might happen, who I might meet. What will be easy, hard, the same, different. Now, a month in, I'm so used to it here. I can't imagine being at home back in Australia, agonising over my future. Guessing what it will be like. I know now, and I can't imagine what it was like to not know.

After months of waiting the day finally came. Scrolling through my inbox i stumbled across an address I didn't recognise. When I clicked on it I had no idea what I was about to find out. The email read:

Dear Elena, I'm sure you don't know us, but that should change in a couple of months. We have read your application for the Student Exchange program and we felt that it would be very nice to have you around our house for half a year.