Dreams become reality... IN 41 DAYS!

Hi everyone (if anyone's even reading this...) and welcome to my blog! My name's Emily, I'm 17 years old and I live in New Zealand. At the beginning of September I'm going on an AFS student exchange to Italy for 10 months. If you would like to read more about the application process I have a colab blog with my friend Lilly who's also going to Italy. On there we have been posting since September last year about applying, fundraising and preparing to leave. We've also done vlogs so make sure you check that out here.

Ever since I was about 8 years old I have dreamt of going on a student exchange but the biggest thing that stopped me was the price. When you see that huge cost if you're anything like me you'd think it would just have to stay a dream. But don't! I don't come from a rich family but after talking to my Mum about it and dreaming of doing this for so many years the dream is finally coming true! I'd looked into other exchange programmes in the past and like I said the cost always lead me to going no further than looking on their websites but when AFS did a talk at my school last year I started to think it could actually be a possibility. At that time I was working and had already saved up a fair amount of money, the guy also talked about scholarships that were available so I thought I may as well give it a go and see if I could get the money. I ended up getting a scholarship through AFS which paid for over half of the programme costs which is so amazing! Apparently the majority of people going on AFS get some sort of funding so everyone has quite a high chance. I also did some fundraising with Lilly which you can read about on our colab blog. If you're thinking of going on exchange and the money is the only thing stopping you please don't let it! There's so many ways of getting help and if you work hard enough anything's possible. I know people say that way too much but it's so true!

I got my host family in April and they sound so lovely! I'm going to be living in Cesena, which is in the north east of Italy. I have a host Mum, Dad and two sisters. The sisters are about 6 months younger and 6 months older than me but the younger one will be on an AFS exchange while I'm in Italy. The family seems really involved in their local AFS chapter. My host Mum is a volunteer and my older host sister has just come back from a year in India with AFS. I couldn't be happier, they sound so amazing! We've been emailing each other every week and I've talked to both of my host sisters on Facebook which is making me even more excited.

My Italian is coming along very, very slowly. I had my first breakthrough - if you could even call it a breakthrough - yesterday. I've been taking Italian lessons with a lovely Italian lady for the past 6 weeksish and I really thought I wasn't getting anywhere until yesterday when it just sort of clicked! I don't know if that's because I finally started actually doing the homework she gave me.... haha. I've also been using an app/website called Duolingo which I really recommend. It's especially helping with my grammar. Other than that AFS Italy has provided us with a computer programme called Rosetta Stone which is an online language learning course. It's good and I do think it's helping but it's just hard to find the time to do it with everything else that's going on.

It's now 41 days until I leave and I'm feeling really excited but I don't think I really realise what I'm actually doing... it's pretty crazy really.One of the biggest things I've learnt from all of the preparation that AFS does with you is that every exchange is different and you only get out what you put in. I'm just so hoping I push myself and put in everything I have because it really is an experience of a life time.

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Ciao!