FBF: Minnesota

{"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page."}

About mid-January, it all of a sudden dawned on me that it had been ten years since I talked my parents into letting me move around the world on a year long school exchange. TEN. YEARS. The realisation hit me like a ton of bricks. 

The Flashback:

I was sitting in assembly one day, hardly paying attention (as per usual) and my ears perked up at a women making a speech about being able to travel to somewhere foreign and immersing yourself in a completely different culture through an organisation called AFS. I was 15 when I heard this, and I preceeded to pester my parents until I was finally able to drag them out to an AFS meeting. I have no idea how, but when I was 16 (the minimum age you could be to go) I got my parents to agree to let me go… for a year. I submitted all the paperwork, and a family from South Dakota picked me. It was just a husband and wife, with a dog, cat and parrot. That last bit kind of freaked me out! But they ended up dropping out of the program, and my future Minnesotan family chose me out of the pool of applicants. Two parents, and three girls (sounded familiar to me). I reckon it was fate. My new dad was a teacher at the school I attended, which had 350 kids from kindergarten up to the seniors. It was bizarre being in a town that small, coming from an all girls high school of 1200 and a city of 400,000 at the time. The culture shock was pretty intense. I could speak English, but we still had some serious issues understanding each other! My new family were all I could ask for and so much more. Not only did they take me in and treat me like one of their own, taking me on trips and immersing me in their lives, but they took on my family too. I went back mid 2006 to walk in graduation with my class (wore the cap and gown too!). My parents, my two younger sisters and I stayed in the same house for the duration.

{With my most baby sister, Tayler, at my graduation}

All these years later, I still consider myself to have two sets of parents, and five sisters. And no matter how long we go without talking, it’s always as if we just spoke yesterday!

That experience, ten years ago, sparked the wanderlust in me. I was bitten with the bug. It was so worth it!

If I was asked to be that woman to make the speech in front of all those uninterested girls in assembly today, I’d do it without (too much) hesitation. Well... that's possibly a lie, I hate public speaking. But it would be worth it if just one of those kids could get that same feeling that I did. In the pit of my stomach, I knew it was the right thing to do! I made lifelong friends and got a brand new extended family to boot.

I’m wondering, when were you bitten by the travel bug?

Thank you so much for reading!

Love times infinity,

Justine x