A short flashback

Wow. Time went by so fast - I can't believe I'm leaving in three days!
Okay, so to get this blog started I'll give a short discription of what happened so far:

Last year, it was during Spanish class I think, I discovered a brochure of TravelWorks, a student exchange organization, laying on a table, probably forgotten by someone. I was bored so I decided to take a look in it - and I was immediately thrilled by the idea of going abroad for some time, especially because I've always wanted to go to Australia. The nature, the culture - everything about this country seemed incredibly interesting, plus it had absolutely no likeness to any country I had been to so far. So I went home, with the idea of going to Australia already starting to settle in my mind, and began to carefully ease my parents in to the idea of spending a lot of money on a trip that would certainly be an experience for a lifetime.
When I first told my dad about it, he thought that I might have lost my mind. €10.000,- for only three months!
But anyway - at some point he got used to the thought and, just to take a look and to inform ourselves better, we went to an exhibition of about 20 exchange organizations in late November last year. That's when I decided it for sure: I would go to Australia, no matter how.

The following 2 months were a bunch of chaos and it was pretty difficult to decide which one of the hundreds of thousands organizations I wanted to go on adventure with. I made a lot of charts, indexes and lists of the different prices, whether the flight was included or not, blah blah blah. And finally, after weeks of struggling and insecurity, I decided to go with TravelWorks after all. They seemed really professional and experienced and just super nice in general, but just to be sure, I also applied for two other organizations, in case TravelWorks wouldn't let me in their program - and two days later I got three calls from all the three organizations, inviting me for an interview with one of their employees.

Those interviews were a piece of pie. Everyone was friendly, we joked around a lot and the English part went just fine. So, if you are going to have an interview like this: don't worry! You'll be fine. Nothing to be nervous about. Just a few questions about yourself, your family and friends.

And then... I don't know how and when  it happened exactly, but I got a few letters from TravelWorks, giving me information about my homestay area (Atherton), my school and finally... my host family.

Interestingly enough I sort of already knew who I wanted as my host family before I really knew they actually existed - because three weeks before I got my family I got to know what school I would go to and I did a little "research" on the school's website and finally found some essays from other exchange students. One of them, she was from Germany, too, wrote that she had lived on a farm with three horses, a dog, cattle, a lot of other animals and a mom, a dad, a host brother and sister. What she wrote about sounded absolutely amazing and I was hoping so badly that I could get that family!
Of course, the chance of actually getting them was so little that I had basically given up my hope the moment it came up, but... A few weeks later I really got the letter that I would stay with that very family!
I was so excited that I was literally jumping around my house ;)

By the way, if you're thinking about going on a High School year yourself (and you live in either Germany, Austria or Switzerland): www.travelworks.de is the site you're looking for! Also, they have heaps of other programs like work & travel, au pair etc. Check it out! Bet you'll find something interesting :)

So, that was how I got my host family and now I'm just hoping that the plane won't crash ;)