Preparing for Exchange

Anxiety and excitement are the best words to describe how I’ve been feeling about my exchange over the past few weeks. As I’m writing this, I have a week until I leave for Chile and my whole world changes, and it’s a bit daunting, if I’m being completely honest.

Every part I’m nervous about, however, I also feel excited about. I’m nervous about speaking Spanish, but I’m excited knowing that after all the struggling with the language I’ll be fluent in it. I’m nervous about meeting my host family and new people in Chile, but I’m also so very excited about all of the friendships I’m going to make and the opportunities I gain on exchange.

For the most part, I’ve been trying to spend my time catching up with friends, saying goodbyes and enjoying the holidays. Over Christmas I went to the Gold Coast and Brisbane with my dad, and enjoyed swimming in the pool and the sunshine. I spent New Years with my mum and my sister (and my sister’s friend who is basically my sister considering how well they get on), and it was nice to go into 2020 with friends and family.

With my friends, I’ve been out to have Chatime and a chat, and just enjoying some time hanging out together. I also went out with my friends on an adventure we like to call ‘Train of Death’, much to our parent’s anxieties. The basic premise is that we as a group travel out to a place in NSW thats at least an hour away, preferably more, all by train and other forms of public transport, and we spend the day there. The first time we went, we all went west to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains to see the Three Sisters and Echo Lookout point.

These holidays we went to up North to Newcastle on a Train of Death adventure. From Newcastle Interchange, we travelled first to the Stockton Foreshore by lightrail and ferry, enjoying bringing out the inner 5 year old’s within us and playing in the park on the playground equipment. We then went on to go to Bar Beach, having lunch at a lookout where you can see the entire beach (it’s really beautiful, I would 100% recommend it). We had a quick swim in the water, and then began heading back home. I’m going to miss the little adventures I have with my friends here in Australia, but I’m going to have heaps of little trips and adventures with the friends I make in Chile this year, and I’m going to enjoy that as well.

I don’t have my visa yet or an appointment booked with the Chilean Consulate to obtain it yet, and that is worrying me with only a week to go, however I’ve got to let the travel agent do their job. To try and stay on top of all of the prep I need for exchange, I’ve had my bags packed for about a week, only leaving a few t-shirts out to rotate through for the next week. I’m too excited to leave, and I’m anxious I’m going to leave something behind. But, I guess that’s what post is for!

I’ll end the blog here, saying a goodbye to everyone I haven’t caught up with yet and whoever I might not be able to see before I leave. Adios!