Olá a todos,

as promised, I will shortly resume my exchange year, mainly talking about my general experience. As many times before, I shall wish you a good and hopefully interesting read!

To start off: Initially, I thought I would have an idea of what an exchange year really is — when in reality — I didn’t have the slightest clue and wasn’t prepared at all for what was to come. Emotions I hadn’t even known before, fairly challenging moments but also the most blissful of experiences were seamlessly transitioning into each other at a fast rate throughout this year. Living away from home, in another place, with other people surrounding me, another language spoken throughout the streets, has drastically impacted me and my life by any means. Even though it sounds fairly clichéd, “having found a part of myself there” would be the most appropriate way of describing it… Being on exchange, I learned to embrace, to embrace the new and the scary — to embrace living out of my comfort zone.

As many clichéd exchange quotes rightfully say, an exchange year is not a year in your life but rather a life in a year. What I was able to harvest couldn’t possibly be compared to a normal year’s worth of living. A wider mind, not just because of an entirely new language, strengthened values, unshakable confidence and a new mindset with a clear view of the future ahead were some of the remarkable things I was able to adapt throughout this experience — as I once wrote in an old post: “Exchange, adapt, evolve!”

Thanks to all of those who bore with me and my inconstant blog posts throughout my exchange year. If everything goes as planned I will also write about the experience I will have on the other side of the AFS spectrum — as a volunteer and hostbrother. You will hear from me!

Julian