Home Again

So, this is my last entry, unless I ever decide to be an exchange student again, which is a possibility. I've been thinking about just doing a summer program with a different exchange program, since my experience with AFS Iceland was not that great. The biggest problem was just that I was stuck in this tiny fishing village of about 960 people at the end of this long road between mountains and the ocean. I'm just not okay with being stuck somewhere that small and isolated. The exchange students in/near Reykjavik could at least ride the buses somewhere at basically any time of day and hang out with the other exhcange students. But, me, no. Lennart lived 20-some miles away and the bus only went from Isafjordur to Bolungarvik 4 times a day, but I had to be on it because I never knew if my host dad would be able to pick me up or if I'd be able to find someone else from Bolungarvik who could give me a ride home, so I missed the school dance and this huge party and a lot of stuff because of that. Plus, my family mostly only watched TV, whenever they were home, that is. And my little brother had NO table manners whatsoever, and that's one of my pet peeves, for sure. It just was not good. But once the school year gets started you cannot change schools, so even if I switched families I would still have been stuck in Isafjordur or some other nearby small town, which I was not okay with. So I came home. And actually, my last night in Iceland was my most fun. I hung out with Sara and Collin and we just walked around downtown Reykjavik for like 2 1/2 hours and talked. That was what I wanted in my Iceland experience. I wanted to be able to hang out with people, and not have to worry about getting a ride home. I wanted to be able to go places and get closer to the other exchange students. But I just felt so isolated from everyone else. This wasn't helped by the fact that they had welcome parties for the exchange students that arrived late, for various reasons, and I wasn't able to go because the parties were in Reykjavik and I was 7 hours away by car, 40 minutes by plane. So this was not at all the amazing experience I was hoping for. But I met people from other countries, and I still talk to some, like Burak from Turkey, and Lennart. Plus, Sara and Collin and I will hopefully keep in touch, since we were the three Americans. Hopefully someday I can travel to a different country and get really involved in the life and culture there, because this experience certainly did not change my desire to travel and learn about the world. I guess now just was not the right time for it. So, here my blog ends. At least, for now...