Ana-2004
My Exchange Year Abroad2003. Eight years has now passed since my Exchange Year Abroad in the United States of America. I was 15 years old when it started, and 16 when it ended. Although it seems like it was a long time ago, that one year keeps on having a great impact on my life. First of all the language. We all now the importance of English now a days. And being able to speak and understand English has helped me numerous times in life: by traveling, reading books, news, music, TV, movies, and of course it has allowed me to make friends all over the world, people that I could have never really met if we didn't have the English to help us understand each other. The language of course is a great aspect of my Exchange Year. But I would´t put it on the top of the list of all the greatest things that I've learned in 12 months. English was just the vehicle that lead me to other greater things. Playing for the soccer team, scoring my first goal, seeing for the first time the colors of the Fall, cider and doughnuts, Thanksgiving, the first snow flakes, followed by "Bob" my first snowman, Halloween, trick or treating, skiing, looking for the perfect Christmas tree on a perfect White Christmas, snow angels, New Years at the Main Street, being in the High School Musical, Disney World, waiting for the Spring to come, Easter at Myrtle Beach, Summer, Prom, Graduation... It feels like I could write forever about all the things that I lived and learned in such a short time. I realized just how big the world really is. I have learned responsibility and respect. Love and homesickness. I have learned that everything has a point of view and that nothing is one sided. "It´s not wrong, it´s not right, it´s just different." I've learned not to judge so fast, and always to keep an open mind. Having learned how much one can grow abroad, the urge of seeing the world has never left me. 2007 I take another flight to the unknown: Paris, France. There I spent 7 Months as an Au Pair. The things I've learned and how it has made me a stronger person I can´t even describe. 2011. Years later I find my self in yet another Exchange Year, this time not as a high school student, nor as a babysitter, but as a law student, at the University of Passau, Baveria, Germany. I´m still learning and growing, and my mind keeps on getting wider and wider. Not coincidentally my dream career is Diplomacy. Living on a different country every three years, meeting new people, other cultures and other languages, understanding and being a citizen of the world while representing my own country, just sounds like the perfect career for me.Having taken that flight to the United States of America, despite all the butterflies in my stomach, has changed and shaped my life in so many different ways. And I can only be thankful for all of them.
Love,
Ana
Love,
Ana
