September 2017
So the day is finally here, the 18th of October 2017, the day I go to my home away from home, Spain. The day started with me feeling nervous and excited at the same time, I had my flight that night at midnight and since the morning I had only one work to do, finish packing and before I knew it was already afternoon. My mom had made my favourite dish Butter Chicken cause I wasn’t going to eat it for a whole year. So after all packing was done and all the documents were in place, I went to meet my friends and started chatting and before I knew it was time to leave. My best friend came with me to drop me at the airport. At 10 o’clock I was at the airport and I was like you are alone now, no friends, no family. It was also the first time I was going to travel by air alone that to all alone.
After passing customs, immigrations, I was now standing at the gates waiting for boarding to start and finally the time comes I step in the flight to Switzerland where I had a stopover for 6 hours which was boring af.
I landed in Zurich at about 6 in the morning and when I saw outside it was so dark that it looked as if it was 12 o’clock at midnight. After passing the time somehow I boarded my flight to Valencia. I was really excited that I was going to meet my host family with whom was gonna stay for a year. With each passing second my excitement was increasing 10 folds, I knew that to pass the time I had there was only one option ‘SLEEP’. So after sleeping for about one and half hour I landed in Valencia at 2 in the afternoon. It was an amazing feeling to be in a new country and seeing so many people coming to welcome you, I had just met my whole host family along with a inbound, Liz like me from America who lives near my house.
The first thing we did as a family was to go out for lunch just after I landed in Valencia. The first Spanish food I ate as soon as I reached Valencia was to eat ‘Paella’ with meat. After a beautiful lunch we went home I was introduced with my house and my new pets.
So I started my school the next day and the moment I entered in my class everyone was looking like woah!!! a foreign student and everyone started asking me where I am from and taking my instagram id. So I made a few friends in the school in the first couple of weeks and they are very friendly.
On 21st of September I met all my fellow inbounds in Valencia- Liz, Josie, Wade from America, Anaé from France, Hayden and Kate from Canada and Claire from Taiwan
October 2017
I started playing basketball for the local team called ‘C.B.Pobla’. On the 7th of October I went to the city with Liz and Claire for window shopping and because we wanted to eat Taco Bell and it is only in the city. After having dinner we were walking near the city council building when we met a classmate of Liz, Leonie who is a inbound from Germany
On 8th of October I, Liz and Claire went to the city to see the fireworks at night as a part of the fiesta of 9th of October.
I visited the city on the 9th of october for ‘dia de communidad valenciana’ and even saw a parade in which people were dressed in various costumes and danced. We have been having a lot of fun recently, on 11th October we had planned to go to a discomobil in Valencia city but when we reached there we knew that the discomobil was cancelled and we had nothing to do. So we decided to go to a discoteca along with two other inbounds from Denmark and Germany from a different organisation, Olivia from Denmark and Leonie from Germany.
On12th October I, Josie and Kate went to the city to just roam around, so we went to a cafe a I had something called the Catalan cake which was like dark chocolate cream filled between two slices of bread which is covered in cocoa powder and coffee. It was also the first time I travelled in the public bus.
On the 14th of October I had my first basketball game, though we lost the game it was pretty fun. At night I went to a discomobil with my friends from my college, which was right in front of our college. I met a lot of friends from my class and enjoyed the night.
The next day I, Wade and Hayden went for trekking at a mountain near Bejis with our families. It took us about 5 hours to complete the trek and walked about 7 kilometres. When we reached the top of the mountain we clicked some photos with the flags from our countries after which I went to my host aunts house to taste a cake she had made ending the day on a high note. It was hectic and one the best weeks I ever had and on Monday the 16th I completed my first month in Spain.
Nothing much happened the next days just the normal routine but on 28th of October I went to Oktoberfest with my friends that was also the time the times in Europe changed and we experienced an hour again. At 3 AM the time changed and went one hour back, so after 2:59 AM it was 2 AM again. It felt weird and I can now say that I just time travelled.
The next day I went to the beach with my family coz they had some activities as they are in a swimming club. At first it was boring because I was left all alone playing with sand and listening to music like a 8 year old. But after some of their activities ended we went to had paella and after coming back to the beach I decided to go in the sea. (ps. I do not know swimming and am damn scared to enter the sea)
On Monday my birthday week started and I was damn excited cause I was going to a disco night the next night and we were having a huge party at our house. On halloween at around 12 I left my house for disco where I met friends from school and had a lot of fun. We finally started to enter the disco area but there were about 300 people in front of us and at some things went so bad that they had to call police and the bouncers for crowd control we finally entered after an hour and a half but I had lost my friends in that and that sucked a bit. Nevertheless I had a big party coming up in a few hours.
NOVEMBER 2017
On 1st November which is my birthday at around 11 my host aunt from Madrid arrived at our house followed by my moms family members. At 12:30 all my friends and their host parents started to arrive, my uncle started to make a paella for about 35 people while we were having snacks and soda. We had lunch at around 2:30 and after lunch we had songs on my speakers while we played some games. I then cut 3 cakes for my birthday brought by the parents and then I received gifts. I was damn happy I had got like a pair of shoes, 2 shirts, a jacket, a wallet, a pair of flip flops and finally my friends gave me a official Valencia FC football which was signed by them in their own languages after all everyone is from a different country. So finally at 6 everyone went back to their homes and I was so tired that I went to sleep at around 8:30. It was one the best birthdays I ever had thanks to my family and friends. Love you all!!!!