01. Before

Hello to my first entry on my travel blog. I want to stay in touch with everyone and share a bit about how I'm doing and what I'm up to. If you have any questions, please reach out to me through the usual channels.
Right now, I'm sitting at a lovely campsite in the Odenwald, a bit south of Frankfurt. It has been a long journey to get here.

It was always clear to me that I would do an exchange, sooner or later. When I reached a suitable age, the pandemic hit. As the situation began to calm down in the fall of 2021, I started thinking about it. The timing was right, even though I was running out of time and some countries were already fully booked with all organizations. I sought advice from different sources and ultimately decided to go with YFU, a volunteer organization that has been organizing student exchanges since 1951.
The first question was which country to choose. I wanted to go outside of Europe, but not to America as the culture is not different enough from the German culture for me. Since I had started learning Spanish in school when I was 21, South America seemed like a good choice. As my parents had already traveled with me in a bicycle trailer through Chile and Argentina, the final decision was Argentina. And then the chaos began.

Bureaucracy.
Once I had made my decision, the next step was to apply. This involved providing several texts and my interests. After a few weeks and an interview, I received an email with the happy news: I was accepted for my desired country, Argentina. Now it was all starting for real. I had to provide many personal details for the search for a suitable host family, in addition to the information I had already provided in my application. My parents had to sign a contract and several other documents, in which they, among other things, transferred their guardianship to the partner organization in Argentina for a year. But the most complicated part was getting a visa for over a year, for which I needed, among other things, a police clearance certificate and my birth certificate with an apostille. In addition, I had to appear, together with my parents (who, incidentally, took care of most of the paperwork for me, thanks!!), in person at the nearest Argentine consulate, which happens to be in Frankfurt. Fortunately, my flight also departs from Frankfurt tomorrow, so I received my visa yesterday, two days before departure.

Here we go!
I unfortunately don't know much yet about what's to come. All I know is that after a 12-hour flight, I will be taken to a camp in Buenos Aires where we will be further prepared for the exchange and given time to recover from the 5-hour time difference. After a week, we will travel by bus or plane, depending on the distance, to our host families. We are 16 students who are all going to Argentina with YFU for 6-11 months and will attend school there.

The VBT
The organization is great so far. Even though it's not the most straightforward, I feel really supported. YFU is mostly made up of volunteers who have done an exchange themselves. They organize preparation seminars, such as the preparation days. It was a school week that I took off in spring to learn about topics like education and openness towards the cultures we would soon be getting to know. I and about twenty other exchange students from Bavaria and the surrounding area went to Sonthofen for this.

It was incredibly fun to meet like-minded people and prepare for the next nine months together.
However, I'm lucky. In Bavaria, it's not allowed to spend the upper school level abroad, especially not partially. Since I have now completed the tenth grade, I have to repeat it. After that, I will return to my current grade 9+ and complete my high school diploma one year later as planned. But it's a bit more complicated. Due to the switch from a G8 school system to a G9 system, there is actually a year after my current graduating class in which there will be no high school diploma. That would mean losing two years. Luckily, my school, RGL, offered G9 or Middle School Plus as part of an experiment earlier as an option. So there is a grade that fills this gap.

My host family
is an incredibly nice family of four. I got their contact a few months ago and have mainly been communicating with the mother. The parents are in their middle age, and their two sons are 2 and 10 years old. Overall, it's a very sporty family, and I'm not sure if I can keep up. I will report back. They live in Avellaneda, a town with about 20,000 inhabitants in the province of Santa Fe. There is a national park nearby that I'm very excited about. Paraguay and Brazil are also within relatively short distances of 400 km from there.

At least in the beginning, I will upload a new post every week, hopefully with some pictures. I'm really looking forward to this new country and the journey as a whole, but I'm also not completely free from anxiety about the trip. It also hurts a lot to leave my home behind.
In the past few weeks, however, I have also realized how terrible I am at saying goodbye, so...
I wish you a nice summer (vacation)!
Talk to you soon!

Best regards, Emil