It was a cold night at the airport, stressed to make sure I had everything in hand and didn’t forget any documents. I thought for a moment, how did I end up here? I always had the idea in my mind that I was going to leave my home for a year but I didn’t realize it was happening until that moment. I was not ready to say bye to my family, we’ve always been close so it was hard for me. I enjoyed my last dinner with my family in a restaurant. Every sentence in the conversation felt so emotional, as if every word had a great impact on my feelings. I had to say bye even though I didn’t want to. I stepped on the plane and felt for a moment extreme motivation. I was scared at first but as soon as I realized that I had to do almost everything by myself with no help I felt encouraged to have the best attitude for the rest of the year.

It was late at night but I was so energetic and positive, listening to my favorite songs, I felt ready for this new challenge. There was a guy next to me that was also doing an exchange year. “Bro we have the same pants” was the first thing I heard from him. I bursted laughing and started talking to him, he was also really positive and confident about doing an exchange year. We became good friends, I was already feeling like things were already going my way, and I was right in the end. I started meeting new people and making friends during the flight, especially students my age that were also doing an exchange year. It may sound weird but I already felt like I was building a new family.

We got to our destination, Canada. As soon as we arrived I started to admire everything that was different from where I am, even people treat you differently here. All my new friends were meeting their host families, and they all seemed happy as soon as they met. Suddenly, I saw a woman with a sign that had my name. I said hi to her with a big smile but she wasn’t interested. I hopped in the car with my luggage, the next 15 mins were just pure silence and me admiring the road. I wasn't really worried because I knew with time our relationship would get better. But I was wrong, I didn't feel welcomed or treated nicely, I felt like she was just interested in the money she would get. I wasn't really worried because I knew I had my new family, my friends.

I started building new skills, new relationships, adventures, and experiences. I had to figure out everything by myself which was a challenge but helped me grow. I also found obstacles and hard times. There were some days thanks to the cold that I would lack so much energy, motivation, and happiness. I could barely see the sun once a week, days where it wouldn’t stop snowing, and extreme temperatures where you could barely feel your hands and ears. As a person that lived almost all his life surrounded by warm weather, it was really difficult coming to a cold country like Canada. But I am also grateful for having this type of winter, I learned how to snowboard for the first time. I would go almost every weekend to the mountain just to snowboard for a couple of hours. School would get canceled some days due to the bad weather, I would just lay on the couch watching Christmas movies with a cup of hot chocolate.

Time passed by faster and faster and even though I feel excited to go back I feel like I’m going to leave a bunch of stuff behind. My friends, my school, my host family, being independent, the weather, and snowboarding. I feel like all of that will still be in my heart until I die because those things made me strong even when I was vulnerable, when times were hard and I was homesick those things would make me get back up and keep going. I am very thankful in the end for everything I experienced here and every minute I spent here. My friend group was amazing. I am going to miss them a lot after everything we did together, from just laying on the couch watching comedy shows to having dinner together and talking about how much we missed food from Mexico. I am always going to cherish this experience and all the memories from this year.