The Last Summer

My name is Greta, and I'm going to be a Rotary Youth Exchange Student beginning in August this year.  I am excited--you don't need to ask.

I apologize for my melodramatic title, but I believe it fits.  This is my last summer as a high schooler, as well as the last summer before my adventure abroad.  It is the last summer I will spend with my friends being the geeky, yet extremely fashionable 'Greta' that people know me as.  When I return, I won't be the same person that I left as.  I don't know who I'll be, and that's scary enough to think about. So, this is the 'last summer' for the Greta you all know and some of you love.

I've finished my paperwork, and now I just have to wait until my visa goes through the consulate.  It's the waiting part, and it's almost as bad as the actually application.  I'm working on my French with Rosetta Stone, even though I've taken up through French IV at my school.  I seem to have forgotten it all.

I can't wait to go, and yet I'm reluctant to leave my friends, who are, frankly, very awesome. Every time they talk about their schedules for next year or the best things about being a senior, I feel a little quiver in my stomach.  I don't want to leave them, and yet I've waited my whole life for an adventure like this.  I can't turn it down.

I'll be studying in Belgium, in a French speaking city called Tournai.  I google-creep it all the time, and it's gorgeous, and my first host family seems really nice.  I can't wait to be there, where the winters aren't five below or the summer reaching heat indexes of 117 degrees.  People who have been there tell me Belgium is beautiful, but I still find myself gazing at Iowan corn fields as we drive past, wondering if I'll miss them.

I'm planning on posting once a week once I get to Belgium, to keep everyone at home updated.  It'll be a lot easier than sending postcards to everybody I know. :)

Over and out,

Greta