Time

Sitting in French lessons and not having any idea what is going on is always a good time to think. The thought that has come to me this French lesson is, time. I remember before i left I was doubting myself if I would 'survive' these five and a half months . The truth is that I guess I really am a home body and I don't like going out of my comfort zone. "It will be a great experience Lotta, you're going to love it", they all said. My answer was always, "five and a half months is way too long, I'm going to want to come back after two weeks."

   It is amazing how one can doubt themselves so much and then the outcome turns out to be the best thing. However, lets be honest here, I wasn't the only one who doubted myself. I knew there were people who were worried about me and if I would manage it all.  I will say that the first two weeks were hard. Trying to find friends at school and not being able to be yourself because of the language problem, on top of living with a different family and trying to get used to how they do things. Every family functions differently and you just have to accept their rules or there will be major problems.
    Confidence was also a problem: I have always been the shy type of person but I had to boost my confidence or I would disappear and be left with no one.   Once i got my head around how everything worked and the differences, things became pretty easy for me.
    The time is flying by, at first I was counting each day and then week but now I hardly even remember the months. I can only just manage to answer the question, "how many months do you have left here?". When you're in your comfort zone and nothing is different you don't really pay attention to time, it either goes really fast or incredibly slowly. But by the time you know it, it is a new year and nothing has changed.
   Homesickness is one of the main problems that people come across when on exchange or away from home for a long period of time. It happens but you just have to accept the fact that you're not going home and just have fun so you can forget about it. I try to keep myself busy each day by planning things ahead so I have something to look forward to.
   You learn to live without the people who used to be in your life everyday. It started off with speaking to a few people most days but then it became less and less. The people who don't make an effort are easy to forget about. It's sad but that's something that happens when you are both living two separate lives. It is weird to think that other peoples lives aren't changing and that is why it makes coming back hard. You leave your new formed life behind and have to go back to the same old, with the same people. Also leave all your new friends behind and go back to the losers you left back home (joking, you're not all losers).
   Something else that made it easier was knowing where I was going and knowing a lot of people before hand. I have had Jasper   (a boy out of my class in Australia who is on exchange in Freiburg for three months). Saying goodbye to him will be hard,I have formed a tight friendship with him because we can relate to one another and he was always there to have a chat to. However, I still have it pretty good because Marlene ( A girl who has been living with my family in Australia for three months and comes from Breisach) comes back just in time for when the others leave. Also Oliver (another one from my class in Australia) won't be too far and he will be flying home with me so the timing works out perfectly.

 Just some family shots for the sake
of it :)