Graduation and June in General

I did it, I graduated high school! In three years too! I'm so happy to be done with high school and now am able to move on to the next chapter of my life. But first I have to get through summer. My summer has been eventful but not really. It started off with the all night Grad party at Bullwinkles which was okay. I would have had more fun if I hadn't of been having a major allergy attack all night long. About a week later I had to get my wisdom teeth out (which really sucked but wasn't as painful as I thought it would be at all) and then a week after that I had my 17th birthday! Now I'm just hanging out with my friends and helping harvest garlic. So June has actually been a pretty good month for me! What was also nice about this month was that I started to hear from ExCEL about details on my travel.

  I will be leaving on August 24th at about 8 am to catch a plane to Washington DC where I will meet with Emma, the other ExCEL Abroader, and we will then catch a plane to Austria. After Austria we will arrive in Vilnius, Lithuania on August  25th at some time in the afternoon. I'm getting excited but I'm also starting to get a little scared too. It'll come so quickly and I'm not freaking out yet over the fact that I only have about 55 days left in the States! For now I will have to start studying Lithuanian, get ready for my last county fair, and of course start the dreadful thing called packing. But everything will be fine.
 

  A couple of my friends who've received scholarships through other programs have already left for their year abroad. I'm excited for them and can't wait to hear more about their countries! And my other friends come home in a couple days from Thailand and Italy. That is both exciting (I've missed them and can't to see them) but I know how bittersweet it is for them and I wish them luck and hope they adjust quickly and nicely to life back here at their old homes. (Shoutout to Evan and Laney as I wish them luck in Thailand and another shoutout to Elena as she comes home from Italy and Erin as she comes home from Thailand). Both of these are the beginning and the end. The beginning of their new life both either in their host country or back home but it also either pauses or ends their life in their home or host country. It's bittersweet for everyone because in either place they are leaving loved ones but will be returning to old ones or making new ones. It's just a reminder of the never-ending exchange process and I'm so proud to of been a part of and am so blessed to be a part of it again. Here's to 55 days left! 

Ps: sorry for the scatter-minded blog, that's exactly how I feel right now! 

My Decision and Why

   I'm not joking this was probably the hardest decision I have made this year and maybe even in my life (so far). With that I should just cut to chase: after much thought and consideration I have decided to go with ExCEL Abroad to Lithuania! This program will be in its first year so I will get to be a pioneer for it. Though it's not as established (yet) as cbyx, I'm okay with it and I'm excited to be a part of its first year and watch it grow from there. It's a bit more pressure than cbyx, as I will basically be setting the tone for this program (along with a couple other students who I have yet to meet) which is super cool. Both programs would have been cool and I'm glad I was fortunate enough to make that decision.

  My parents made this decision completely up to me which was good but it wasn't helpful in helping me make a decision. They told me they weren't going to influence any country or program more though I feel that one of them was but indirectly and when she did I would defend Lithuania and want Lithuania more. All I could think about was Lithuania and how awesome it would be to be the first on the American side of the program! I even tried flipping a coin but got the same upset reaction if I didn't get Germany or if I didn't get Lithuania. I then decided to make a pro-con chart and then weigh my options from there looking at the programs, countries, language, and culture. I felt as though my heart was telling me Lithuania but my mind was telling me why not both?  I asked my fellow applicants what they would chose and why which was helpful. We discussed it and they even told me that they thought my heart was saying Lithuania (shout out and huge thanks to Megan, Jeremy, and Alexis who were the ones who discussed this with me). I decided to listen to my heart.
 

    So now the count down begins! I don't know exactly what day I will be leaving but I most likely will be leaving in August. I also have to get a health exam and sign some more papers and of course wait for more emails/information on the program! And of course learn some Lithuanian (and graduate high school). I'm super excited and sort of terrified but I can't wait to see where this takes me! 

    

Finding out about CBYX and ExCEL Abroad

As I said in my previous post, finding out about CBYX was probably one of the most stressful, terrifying, and hilarious things that has happened to me this year. To start off I had been told by a fellow applicant that we should be heading back on March 20th and my interviewers told me around that time as well as many blog posts said that they found out around this time too. So I thought they would be that weekend. That weekend also happened to be my FFA state convention and the first day of convention was March 20th, the day I thought notifications were coming out. That night, I was sitting in the first general  session of the Oregon FFA state convention when I felt my phone buzz. I was getting a phone call. I had a what I like to call a mini heart attack and started to freak out a little bit (okay a lot) right in the middle of session. Looking at my phone I saw it was from Oregon and thought, this may be it! Later, after session was over I found out that IT WASN'T CBYX AFTER ALL! Just a telemarketer... I wasn't very happy.

   All throughout state convention, whenever my phone would buzz I would have that mini heart attack and only look at my phone to end up being disappointed. I feel bad for everyone who called me that weekend as I got very mad when it wasn't CBYX and was just another "what time are you leaving" question. Finally state convention was over on March 23rd and I still didn't know if I had gotten in or not. After driving home I ended up hanging out up at a friend's house with two of my friends. I decided as we started to watch a movie to check my Facebook only to see that ASSE CBYX notifications had started. I started to freak out. I didn't have service up there so there was no way for me to know. More people started to find out and I was getting nervous. My friends just told me to calm down and that everything would be okay. They even offered to drive me into town but I didn't want them to waste gas. After some time we ended up going down to the sports court to plan for a FFA event for a hour or so. After heading back up to the house I felt my phone buzz. I looked at it to see that I had some service and a missed phone call with a voicemail that was received around the same time as the other CBYX finalists. But my stupid phone wouldn't load the voicemail! After talking it over with each other one of the friends left and the other one drove me down where I could get service. We got there and stopped the car and I put the voicemail on speaker... I got in! 

   I screamed when I heard the word that I had received it. Apparently so loud that I hurt my friends ears. I freaked out some more and then called my parents. They were proud of me. I was super excited! I had basically accepted the fact that was going to college next year but this was new news that I was so happy to hear but even more terrified to accept.
 

     But right when I was done waiting and that I was for sure going to Germany, I received a notification in April that I had been chosen as a semi finalist for the ExCEL Abroad scholarship! After getting a little excited about that and finding out that there was only one other semi that I knew of I started to get nervous again. We didn't think it was too competitive  as it was a new program and didn't have very many applications! The next week I had an interview which was a Skype interviewed and consisted of typical study abroad questions  and a lot of those questions were based on my time in Argentina. I was pretty confident as this wasn't my first trip around but I didn't expect anything too great. But I had it wait, some more. Not fun. If I had a dollar for every time I checked my email throughout this whole study abroad scholarship process I wouldn't need a scholarship to go abroad. Heck, college may have been already paid for with that money!
 

   Today, on April 23rd, I found out via email that I had been selected as a finalist for the ExCEL Abroad program to Lithuania. I found out during school too, right in the middle of English class whose teacher ended being the one who wrote my recommendation. Honestly, I was not expecting it and I expected at the very most that I would be an alternate. I would be a part of the first group of kids going to Lithuania on this scholarship which is super cool! I haven't quite decided which I'm going to chose but I have until Tuesday to decide. There will definitely be a blog post on that. I'm super excited for this process and where I chose I know it will be the right place to go and that I will have an amazing and wonderful experience! 

Since Argentina...

It has been quite some time since I last left the beautiful country of Argentina, about 7 months to be exact! In those months a lot has happened: I started school up again, started to apply to other exchange programs, applied to colleges, had my wonderful host sister come stay with me for her 3 month exchange, and got both rejected and accepted to all that I applied for. It's been a journey and I don't for one second believe that it's been that long or all of that has happened.

   As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, Argentina and my exchange helped me realize that I wanted to go into the international field and to start planning with that in mind. With that I decided apply to scholarships through the State Department because I wanted to go on exchange again and this time for a year. But of course my school informed me that in order to go on exchange my senior year and not threaten my graduation, I would have to graduate this year with the class of 2015 instead of my class of 2016. I was all for it! So I started my then three applications to study abroad. These include at the time NSLI-Y, CBYX, and YES Abroad.
 

*below is a little overview of each program:

NSLI-Y the National Security Language Initiative for Youth is a State Department scholarship that offers high school age students the chance to study abroad for either the summer or a year and learn either Arabic, Russian, Persian, Chinese, Korean, or Turkish. CBYX or the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange is a scholarship that focuses on trans-Atlantic relationships with the United States and Germany. The US send 250 kids to Germany to live with a host family, attend school, and learn the culture of Germany and Germany send 250 kids to the United States to do the same. The YES Abroad scholarship send students from the United States to significantly high Muslim populations to learn about the culture and fill in the gap between Muslim stereotypes and USA stereotypes through intercultural learning and understanding. They send 65 students to either Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Turkey, Egypt (terminated), Tunisia (terminated), Ghana, Senegal (new this year), South Africa (terminated this coming year), Oman, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and India. 
 

   Besides applying to all these programs I also applied to 6 colleges including Utah State University, Oregon State University, Montana State University, University of British Columbia, University of Washington, and Arcadia University and got accepted to 5 and waitlisted for one (which was okay because I don't know why I applied there as I can't afford it and didn't really have any desire to go there). 
 

    After getting rejected by NSLI-Y Russian year program in December, I was quite upset as I really had a passion to learn Russian and go to Russia even before Argentina but it was okay. Over 3500 kids apply for the 625 positions so I was just happy that I tried. In late January I found out that I was a semi finalist for CBYX and would have an interview on February 28th. I was beyond happy and excited, especially after my initial rejection from NSLI-Y. Shout out to all the YES abroad applicants who kept me sane all throughout this process! I don't know what I would have done without them especially when I received bad news from the YES abroad program the day before my CBYX interview. I got rejected, again, and from the program that I really thought I would get into. I was super upset. But I took all that anger and being upset and went to my CBYX interview the next morning and rocked it! I felt really good afterwards and I guess it kind of helps that I have done this before and have interviewed students who decided to apply for Rotary this year. Oh! And a little but earlier in February, I found out about the ExCEL program which is a program that was literally just made in thing in late January 2015. (It send students from the US to Lithuania and I can't say too much as this program is brand new and the works are still getting worked out! But I should hear back from them in about a week or so, either late March or early April). 
 

   After being rejected from YES and even though I thought I rocked my interview, I lost all hope in spending next year abroad and started to prepare myself for two more rejections and told myself that I was most likely going to college. With that I decided that I would attend Arcadia University in Pennsylvania in the fall. Arcadia is the #1 ranked study abroad school in the USA and I had fallen in love with it's international program. I was also accepted to their First Year Study Abroad Experience, FYSAE, to London spring semester of 2016. My mom even bought tickets for us to go and visit it just to make sure I actually liked the school. I accepted the fact that that was where I was going to go and even considered withdrawing my CBYX and ExCEl applications because I thought I would just be rejected in the end and I didn't want to go through that again. But then, a surprise came my way. On March 23rd, I got a phone call from one of my interviewers  informing me that I was one of the lucky recipients of the CBYX scholarship and would be offered the opportunity to study in Germany as a 2015-2016 exchange student! I freaked out! (I will write another post about this as how I found out was quite comical and this post is already super long). I accepted. 
 

   So now I have to go through the process of deferring for the year from Arcadia (and pray that they will still give me my scholarships), officially graduate from high school, and prepare for my year in Germany. This blog will no longer just be my Argentina blog but my overall traveling blog for my exchange in Germany as well hopefully my study abroad programs in college and anything in between! (Hence the reason why I changed the name) I hope to blog more in Germany and to keep y'all informed on my life there and leading up to it! 

Being An Exchange Student

   Now that my exchange is just about done, I've realized how much I don't want to go home! Argentina has really become my home and my life in Newberg will never be the same, it's the price you have to pay for traveling, a little piece of your heart stays behind.

    I can tell you that if anyone had told me a year ago that I would be spending my summer in Argentina I would have told them that they were crazy! My family normally stays in the states when it comes to vacations. If they told me I was going to become an exchange student I'd tell them they were mental.  If someone told me I would be an exchange student to Argentina I would have asked them what drug they were on because that sure wasn't going to happen. But I'm glad it did.

  But being an exchange student hasn't been an easy ride, it is full of bumps and huge mountains and whatnot. You throw yourself into an unknown place, into a new family,  country,  school, language, culture,  and you have nothing. You have to start a new life  for yourself.  You go through things that people,  even your parents haven't been through. But it has been an incredible journey,  one full of crazy events, which I don't regret. Though I wish I tried harder on the language,  I don't regret much. Becoming an exchange student has been the best decision I have ever made in my life and I'm so grateful for the opportunity and happy it came along.

      Though my time in Argentina was short,  I really feel at home and wish to never leave,  I will definitely come back for sure to visit the amazing people I have met here.

   Exchange is no easy thing and it is definitely NO vacation. Vacations, you don't experience what I have experienced and they are definitely shorter. They don't affect you like exchange does. Vacations are trips, exchange is a second life so if anyone I know is reading this,  please don't call it a trip (trust me all exchange students hate that word) as it was much more than that.  Instead ask:
-How was your exchange?
-How was Argentina?
Or anyway that doesn't involve the word trip.

      Exchange also changes people in amazing ways. You basically have to grow up. And let me tell you that I am not the same person who left my country two and a half months ago. I have changed,  I have matured,  I have grown up.
        Upon my return home I will start school and have to go back to my boring old life, which I'm going to change for sure. On the bright side, Flor will be coming in December so that will be great! I hope I can help make her exchange as amazing as mine was. I also have decided that this is what I want to do,  international work, and will be applying for two or three State Department scholarships to go on a year long exchange my senior year to help prepare me for international work.  (I want to go to Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, or Germany I think). On top of that I will have to graduate this year (I only need 1.25 credits to graduate and will be taking 3 BYU online courses). This year will not be easy as I am taking three AP classes, am doubling up on my English classes, want to start two new languages, and to continue to do good at FFA competitions. I will continue to dance but not as much.  It will be hard but hopefully the award at the end will be worth it.

    Overall, being an exchange student has been the greatest decision of my life and if any of you reading this have even the slightest interest in it I strongly encourage you to look into it and go for it! Seriously.  Look into it. You won't regret it. Also if you have any questions or are interested on how, feel free to contact me! (Leave a comment if you don't have my info). It would be my honor  and I would be more than happy to try to help you get into an amazing,  life changing,  program to give you an experience like this.

Las Cataratas Del Iquazú

  My host family took me to Las Cataratas Del Iquazú over the winter holidays! I'm so thankful for that opportunity,  it was truly something.

   We left around 8 am on a Saturday morning and started the 1153.5 mile drive to the falls. (It was a 21 hour drive but we split it half so we only traveled about 9ish hours that day). First stop was Federación,  a nice town off the border of Uruguay.  In Federación we went to the thermas which was a hot springs! It wad super nice and there were a lot of people there. There was like 8+ pools too so not really crowded. After our 2 night stay we traveled to Puerto Iquazú (only your causal 11ish hour drive) and stayed in a house hotel. The next morning we went to see the falls. We spent all afternoon walking on trails and looking at the falls. I took a lot of photos but they are on my camera so I can't really post them on here and due to an accidental dropping of my phone into the toilet, I couldn't took photos of it with my phone.  Also that day we went on a 3 or more kilometer hike to see a little fall then headed back.

   The next day we went to the falls again but this time went on a boat trip. We went through the rapids then got super close to the falls, like we got pounded on by water. It was scarily amazing  and we got soaked! The next day we went to the Brazilian side which was even more amazing!  Argentina has more falls but the view is better in Brazil. After that we went to Paraguay which we only stayed for a hour and that was just sitting in the car. It was a little sketchy and Flor was freaking out most of the time saying that she wanted to go back to Argentina. 

   The next day we drove for an even longer time to Rosario,  a very beautiful city where the flag was made, also where Messi lives. We even got to eat in a restaurant he owned.  (It wasn't very good). The next day we went back to Necochea and got home around 8 pm, which was good as we had school the next day.

  I am so grateful for my family for taking me and for this experience overall!

The Food

  Okay, we all knew this post would come soon. I'm in love with most of the food here. For those of you who don't know me, I am a pretty picky eater, not as bad as past years, but still. I don't like certain textures of food, which mostly all fall into the fruit category. I can't stand it and makes me want to throw up (I even get the feeling of throwing up). But while on exchange,  I decided to really try to put that aside and try most things.... I tried fruit. Well I tried apples (which I do sometimes eat at home) a pear and a banana. I have drunken a lot of juice while here and really love it too! Fruit isn't bad tasting to me, it's literally just the texture.   

        
  The way the meat is cooked here is really amazing. There's no spices and if there is, it's salt. My family sometimes cooks our meat in the fireplace too! Just cover burning coals and smoke. Oh so good. Chicken is sometimes cooked like that too.

 

My host mom comes from an Italian heritage,  so all the food she makes is very Italian as well. Argentina itself, or at least the places I've been are very European. (Which makes sense as when everyone was migrating, the US didn't have tue most immigrants,  it was actually Argentina that had the most [thank you AP European History for actually teaching me something]). So anyways, we eat a lot of pasta and Italian food. The bread is also amazing.

 

  Dulce de leche, which is like caramel, is another amazing thing here.  it is used as a spread as well as a filling for most pastries. Alfajores, are a sugary bread thing covered in either chocolate or a white powdery sugar with dulce de leche in the middle. They are my loves. The pastries ate amazing here as well. Did you know that churros actually are from Argentina?  Yup they are my friends. Empanadas are also my life and something I'm really going to miss.

 

   Okay, sorry to say this but Hershey sucks. The chocolate is disgusting and chocolate here is way better. There's kinder (from the makers of  Nutella), Colfer, Milka, all these amazing ones! They are soooo good and I'm determined to find them in the US.

 

   Finally, mate.  Mate is a traditional drink that basically a open tea bag and drunken throw a straw and shared with your "mate" (you're punny Karissa!) It's super good and I'm bringing it back with me!

   Overall the food is amazing and I'm going to miss it sooo much!