First Exchange

Hey Isabella!

I did a student exchange two years ago and it was the best experience of my life. My experience was a little different to yours- I was a bit older (20) so I was at university instead of high school and I stayed in student residence with other students instead of with a host family. But still, I had never travelled before and I was going from Australia to the UK- you can't get further away than that! I was terrified and excited at the same time and for the first few days I rang my mum every day crying and telling her that I was coming home! But once I settled in I never looked back and didn't want to come home because of all the AMAZING friends I'd made. Living in a new country for a while is just the best experience you can have, especially at your age- it gets you out there, gives you some life experience, gives you some independence and you learn so much about yourself. You'll come back a different person, I guarantee it- but I mean that in a good way!

As for feeling homesick, not much you can do about that! It's just part of going away for that amount of time. Obviously, calling home, chatting on facebook (or whatever), emailing will all help. And don't forget that you'll have school holidays- if your feeling THAT homesick, maybe you can go home for a couple of weeks then- or perhaps your family or friends can come out and visit you. Italy's not that far from Canada (relatively speaking).

I think you'll have a FANTASTIC time- it might take a week or two to settle in and become comfortable, so don't be put off if you land and want to turn around and go home again (like me!). I'm not sure what to say about the host family- I didn't stay with one myself. But I've got a couple of friends who went on student exchanges in high school and stayed with host families- they loved it.

Good luck! Reply to this

Hi,

Thank you for the advice! I am sorry about the duplicate thread - I did not know it was bad and was not sure where would be best to post this. I arrived in Canada today. My host family is very nice and have a very nice house. And I did bring them some Italian food. We were supposed to do so. Anyhow so far they have gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable. I am quite tired from my long day though - I got here at about 1:30pm Canada time and now it is 7:30. We had pizza for dinner so that was familiar, and they even had it early for me to help with the time difference. Canada pizza is different than Italian pizza but still okay and I enjoyed it. Now I am just settling into my room and am going to go to bed early - it is already 1:30am in Italy, and I was barely able to sleep last night due to how anxious I felt. And I am not even homesick yet! So so far, so good. Thank you again for all of the information - much appreciated.

Ciao,

Isabella Reply to this