This weekend has been a fun AFS weekend. I had my Pre Departure Orientation yesterday from 12:30-5:30, and I got my Travel Info on Friday! I will talk about yesterday first, because there is more to tell :-)
There were 35 girls and 5 guys (according to the list we received). All of the people (Returnees, Volunteers, and other Students) seemed really nice. The main places people were going were Argentina, China (all for the summer), Costa Rica (for the summer), France, Germany, and Turkey. There were a couple miscellaneous places people were going. One of the girls I hung out with a lot yesterday was Katherine, she is a Junior (I think?) and she is going to India for the summer. There is a guy who is going to Italy for the year like me, his name is Sergio. It was interesting because as other people have mentioned on their blogs, and I found too, is that all the AFSers seem to get along really well. We all talked to each other, seemed to have similar concerns, and of course, we were all VERY excited!
We watched a few short videos, talked about what AFS is and is not, cultural adjustment, safety, the AFS rules, about culture and how you see more of the culture when immersed rather than when you are just a tourist, stereotypes, and then we broke into groups and talked about different scenarios "what would you do?" type things. Wow sorry for the run on sentence there haha! Oh! You may be wondering how many of them received their host families. From who I talked to, it seemed like about half of them have. Sergio (the guy who is going to Italy, like me) has been placed in northern Italy, close to France.
As I said, on Friday I received my travel info. When other people talked about it, I was confused as to what it was exactly. Its not the information about your host family, its just the information as to when and where your flight will depart and arrive, if you will switch places, etc. So FOR ME, the orientation will be in New York in the afternoon on September 5th. This means that I will leave at oh dark thirty, and drive to New York. My parents will drop me off, and I will being my adventure! We will stay overnight for the orientation, and then my plane will leave the airport the night of the 6th. We will arrive in Switzerland around 11:30 on the 7th, and will switch planes, and arrive in Rome later that afternoon.
Hopefully, I will be able to focus enough this week to do well on my finals. I think in a way, it is a good thing I do not know my host family, that way I am not wasting my time finding details out about the area which I will be living. I cannot wait till summer! ONE more week! :)
Arrivederci!
