My exchange year shaped me in a way no other experience could. In an age where every problem becomes huge and where family and friends are the most important thing, I left. I observed my hometown slowly fading while the airplane was flying through the clouds. No, I didn't bring my dog with me, neither my habits nor my favorite food. It was just me with roughly 20 kgs of clothes.

The difference between a normal teenager and an exchange student is mainly one. The exchange student is a teenager who has to go through the drama and problems of that segment of life while living with strangers out of the country, having to socialize to be able to get new friends and start working hard to feel part of his host community and working on the host language to eventually become fluent in it.

No one truly understands how hard it can get to be far apart from everyone you loved since you can remember. Everyone else sees it as a "long vacation". They get encouraged by the positive part of the experience - learning a language and traveling - but do not take into consideration the downsides. According to me and my own experience, it wasn't too hard. My ups were way more than my downs, but when I did have some, I really felt like touching the bottom. In a bad day, even a stupid joke could compromise my mood.

If I haven't made the decision of going abroad, I wouldn't probably call myself a strong person, or even open minded. Although I always claimed to love North America, I was quite ignorant about the US. People think they know everything by simply believing, but they don't. I had to see what the States were really about with my own eyes in order to know the truth. My perspective about the whole world changed. I chose the USA because of my unchangeable mindset and because I wanted to be fluent in English, if they sent me to some other country I probably wouldn't accept it, or do it but with a lower level of excitement. At the moment instead, the situation is completely the opposite. I wanna go everywhere. I have a hard time deciding where to go first and where to do this or that. I constantly look up, stare at airplanes drawing in the sky.

I understand now that I am spending my life planning my way out, always thinking about traveling, exploring or simply wandering around. Before going on an exchange, I just thought it would have been cool to live as an American, being able to purchase Starbucks coffee (yes, we don't have it in Italy) or storing my books in a locker. I didn't even take into consideration the idea of traveling else where because I was confident Rotary would have sent me somewhere in the States. But yeah, I ended up forgetting about Starbucks and didn't even have a locker in my high school. Life is interesting and never goes as planned.

I'd like to conclude giving a little advice: if an exchange student starts a discussion with "When I was abroad I..." s/he is not trying to show off, but is simply trying to keep memories alive. We cannot go back in time and live our experiences again but we certainly can keep "living" our side-life in our minds by remembering and thinking about the emotions we felt at the time.

- Cris

I read "This is going to be my year" a lot on the internet, but then months pass by and that phrase turns into "I will try again next year". I see a lot of disappointment and unhappiness. I've to admit that for me it has been a pretty good year instead. I flew 8 times, I visited two new countries, been living in Denmark for a quarter of 2016, lost 9 kgs, graduated from high school and freed myself from that grey building shaped like a jail.

The highlight of the year was having both my American brother and parents visiting me in my hometown. I traveled around Italy and been to two cities for the first time: Pisa & Lucca.

I, once again, made international friends at my university and became a buddy and tutor for the new students coming in 2017 because I like helping people out. I am also taking Danish classes because I like learning new languages and cultures. I also climbed for the first time despite being scared of heights. I tried to be involved in as many things as I could but also to concentrate on my studies.

See, it sounds like I had the time of my life but I can tell you that I also had my downs, because everything has a price. Although, take that jump. Tuesday I went back to my high school to wish happy holidays to some of my teachers and when I saw their new students I felt like hiding and denying to be Italian. I saw a bunch of teenagers being childish and without any kind of interest in what they were doing. They were just trying to fit in, pursuing a boring life. This helped me understand how far I've come and to be proud of my achievements, however big or small they could be.

" It's like you're always stuck in second gear
Oh when it hasn't been your day
Your week, your month, or even your year
I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cause you're there for me, too "
- The Rembrandts (Friends Theme)

- Cris

My exchange year started around two years ago, yet every single day of my exchange year feels like it happened just a short time ago. On this day two years ago, I was in a new world. You could have offered me to be the first person to space travel with Elon Musk himself, I would have chosen the beautiful, weird, awesome, different world that is the United States of America.

After this much time, most exchange students are probably “done” with their exchange year and have moved on to other things. Pursuing careers, studying exciting subjects in university or travelling the world. 

Not me. 

Whenever there’s a High School in a movie, my mind instantly goes into nostalgia mode. I can only think of all the things that were so different, so new to me. My sole thoughts will be devoted to somehow recreating the curiosity that I was able to experience for this one school year. The smiles of people on the hallway, the cute cheerleaders in their uniforms and the feeling of unity when everybody wears school clothing for game day. And the weird kids who didn’t ever care what was going on. And how much I love all of it.

An American home in a movie will reliably bring back memories of movie nights with my weird, yet beautiful host family, that could barely take me midst all their own troubles but did so anyway. Laughing endlessly with my little sister at the worst TV shows that could possibly be on air. Simply the feeling of being home and being so indefinitely, even if it was only for those few months.

Any stupidly funny picture of American sports team couldn’t not remind me more of showing up to practice in a freezing Colorado winter or the burning mountain sun. It will never cease to create in me a feeling of wanting to bring back that time.

Everything comes back to mind and awakes in me a feeling which I can’t describe. It’s definitely closer to sadness than to euphoria, and has a hint of gratitude as well as regret in it. I do realize that I am describing a feeling in the way that sommeliers might rate wine, but this is what it feels like to me. 

The funny thing is that my exchange year was a rather hard time and god knows that I had a hard time finding friends, competing in sports, talking to girls and maintaining grades in school, all the while eating mountains of food that would have served three normal people (right mom?). My family both American and German will tell you that my problems, especially with the attitudes of American people towards friendship would never have indicated that I would ever write this. Most people were even annoyed for my bashing of Americans because I was so desperate to have a real group of friends. From a rational standpoint, I consider the American school system even worse and more boring than the one here in Germany. There is a pile of things that are not great about America (insert Donald Trump joke here) and that I didn’t even find great back when I was in Colorado.

And yet here I sit, with a couple of tears streaming down my face, reminiscing of that time when everything was made out of curiosity. When I could walk down the street, finding everything just so amazing, that it didn’t matter whether it was better, worse, uglier or prettier. When things were the way they were and everything was new.

The fascinating thing, to me, is that while I lived in this wonderland, all the American kids lived a normal, ordinary life that was no different than mine, judging by the surface level. Perception is weird like that. For somebody, my school here in Germany might be what Arvada West was to me.

I will never be able to comprehend, what this exchange year did to and for me. 

When I look around now, what I see is so far from anything I’d wanted life to be like. In America, everything seemed like a party. People were so friendly, not even knowing me. A simple “Hey, What’s up?” could brighten my day immediately back there. When I go to school now, most people are somewhat bitter and frustrated, living through series of tests and exams, all the while anxiously thinking about what the next three quarters of their lives should be spent this. And I know this not to be true and that there are others, who don’t live life in this gray, boring style. But I perceive it to be this way after my exchange year, as nothing will compare to the excitement, that the world around me seemed to be built of.

School to me is no more than manual labor in the vile factories of the industrial revolution. And yet it isn’t, from any rational standpoint.

The disillusionment that my High School year left me with opened the door for ambition and a longing for a life in which I can be curious about everything but also for hardship and feelings that only a sommelier could perfectly describe. 

I didn’t always have a great time in America. But if I could, I would take two years out of my life to spend another one in the United States of America. In this absurd world in which everybody is the way they are, in which dreams are made and crushed, in which people with blue hair with hippie ideals in mind walk next to business tycoons gearing up to destroy native American holy land for profit. 

All in all, I love America and the way it is. No, it’s not the greatest country in the world, but it’s been my greatest life so far.

Written by Finn Lobsien

Yes. Don't. I mean other than making new friends, learning everything about a new culture, learning how to deal with things on your own and traveling, there is nothing good about it. Make the decision of staying home instead, consuming the bottom of your shoes walking the same path every morning because that is much more exciting than maybe getting to know someone new every time you get on the school bus.

Don't go abroad, I mean you people always say how good your home town is, how yummy the food is, how you are cooler than foreigners, how beautiful your language sounds. So why would you even consider going?

If you don't though, you need to know that you will regret it, and yes, I was being sarcastic earlier. See, the train of opportunities everyone always talks about comes only one time, you either decide to catch it or not. If you don't, you burn your only chance to know if it was worth it and will live with regret for the rest of your days.

If you are wondering whether to go or not, it means that something is holding you back. It could be a person telling you he or she doesn't feel like you could handle it. Or maybe fear is stopping you because you read on the internet someone had a bad experience. That is absolutely wrong, each one of us is different and deals with things and approaches people in different ways. Pack your things, smile, and walk towards your fears, because once you tear them apart you will feel the greatest.

PS Please support me by following my G+, as well as engaging with me on social media.

- Cris

Maybe someone thinks I'm crazy, crazy because according to them I let memories hold me back in the past, but truth is I am moving faster than anyone who's just on the other side of the screen reading one side of the story. Yes, I incredibly miss being on exchange and I do write about it, but I am building myself a present as well as a future. My signature in that Rotary Application was just the beginning of something beautiful. It did not end when I caught the airplane that flew me back home, because as one brought me there, another one took me abroad once again.

See people, I've to admit it is not always easy. It is not easy to spend months without hugging my parents, messing around with my siblings & petting my dog. But it is what it is. That's what I had to sacrifice for studying abroad. Life ain't always a beautiful journey, but we can make it easier for ourself if we start doing what we love and start worrying less about what people say or think.

What's really crazy about me is that I, somehow, always achieve what I aim for, but once I do I need more. It's like one thing after the other. Maybe it isn't as crazy as it sounds, maybe it is how it is supposed to be. No one wants a boring life. No one has truly just one dream, our mind is full of them. We just need to achieve one at the time.

Sooner or later you will get wherever you want, but you have to make it happen. You've to find a way. Forget the cranky and single neighbour who tells you he makes big money in an office and spends his free time eating chips on a sofa watching a soap opera. You don't have to become like him. You don't need the money if you are going to spend them like that. I'm sorry if you are the kind of person that justifies his studies with "my parents told me to study law" because it translates into "I don't give a shit about it, but mama said so and I've got to stick to it". It's good you obey to your mom, but you've 99% of chance to end up dropping out after two years anyways, so I'd suggest to study whatever you are interested since day 1.

Dropping out is okay, as long as you are the one figuring out that it wasn't for you. I am not really sure which kind of life I want to live either, I change my mind pretty much twenty/twenty-five times a day. I realised I don't enjoy stable things, or at least not yet. I want to look out an airplane window, walk different streets every now and then & shake hands with new people.

PS Please support me by following my G+, as well as engaging with me on social media.
- Cris