Friendships...

Dear Readers,

I hope you are all doing good. In this post, I wanna talk about friendships!
This experience might be about a lot of different things as language, culture, food, school, etc., but the most important things are the friends and people I have met and still meet.
Without the people, I wouldn't have the laughter, the culture, the fun, the memories = the experiences.
Therefore, I feel like it's time to make it clear how it is to be friendless, what you learn about friendships, and how long time it actually takes to make friends, when you travel to a new place.

As you have read in some of my former posts, I came two days later than expected. Expectations!
I did not think anything bad could happen to me, but my flight was cancelled, when I finally arrived in Washington. My expectations did not have any affection on the reality.
I was lucky though. I was surrounded by Germans. I got some really close friends in these people on a really short amount of time.
They were amazing. We were all in the same situation. We had been so excited to finally meet our host families for the first time, and then the flight was cancelled? That couldn't happen!? But it did, and we got an adventure out of it!
It was fun!
When I finally arrived in Ohio two days later, I suddenly realized how lonely I was. I had two weeks till the school started, and I did not have any friends in my age. Not in Ohio.
The two weeks were long. I had never felt that lonely before, and the realization of the situation shocked me more than I had expected. Expectations again...
I was missing someone to share my thoughts with, someone to talk to, someone who would understand how it felt to be lonely. I was missing friends.
Facebook and my Diary became my best friends really fast. I could see my Danish friends on FB, I could write about my loneliness in my Diary, and I could frankly talk to my family on skype.
But I felt guilty all the time. I was not supposed to spend my time on the computer, so I tried not to use it, even though it was really hard...
It made me crazy. I was also stressed by all the kids in my host family all the time, and I felt like I couldn't relax, and that I had to entertain them all the time. What about myself?

This was a good start, but I got friends faster than I thought. I went to church the second day, and I met some cool people. I got a really close friend called Amber, and already before two weeks had past, we had a sleepover together. It was so much fun!
But in November, a week before Thanksgiving, I moved family. I lost my church friends from my old family.
I still had my friends at school, but none of us were that close friends at that point - it takes time to make really close friends :)
I had to see my old friends in the distance, and the school friends in a clearer picture. It was hard, but it was a move I had to take. Friends are necessary no matter where you go.

Life is about making choices, and sometimes it means you have to leave some people behind for others. You have to do what you can to survive, and fight for what you got. That's what I did.
I have a lot of friends now, and I feel like I am getting closer and closer to all of them from every day that goes. Angel, Alex, Mikaela, Mariam, Hanan, etc. - I love you all, and I am so happy to have met you, and to be your friend. I am also happy, dear reader, to be your friend!

I have also learned that you can pretty fast become friends with the whole world, when you spend a year abroad.
I met a Chinese girl in an airplane, when I was on my way to Hawaii in February. We sat beside each other, and we just started to talk. She was really nice, and she invited me to her country, and then she gave me a gift. How nice!
It takes time to make close friendships, but they have to start somewhere in the smaller, and then they will develop after a while, if you believe in it.

To the people who are dreaming about going abroad - I can definitely recommend it!
I will not tell you not to have expectations (I was being told to not have it - but I still did?)
I will tell you to expect to be patient in many ways. Especially, when it comes to friends. It really takes patience and time, and I think, you should expect that!
Even though it might be hard, I can tell you that it is 100% worth it.
You can go anywhere in the world, if there's people! It is not the place that matters, but the people!
If anything happens, you always have your friends!

Enjoy life!

Almost only a month left in the States...

Love,

Jules :)