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| Ainara and Nerea |
I will never have the excitement of one day seeing an AFS email in my inbox and finding out that I've gotten a host family. Don't worry. It's not as depressing as I've made it out to be. It's actually a really confusing story... When I return from Spain, I would like to Au-pair somewhere in Europe. I was thinking of doing this after my Junior year and maybe a summer in college sometime. I made an account on Aupair.com just to find out more about it and see about pays and different types of family. On my bio, I explained that I couldn't do it this year because I would be a foreign exchange student in Spain. A family in Spain emailed me and they loved that their children could meet me before I would have to spend a whole summer with them sometime in the future. The family Skyped with me, and then they asked where I would be staying in Spain. I explained to them how the process worked and that nobody had chosen me yet. Then the weirdest thing happened. The lady was like, "Okay, we call the AFS agency on Monday and speak of you." Long story short: THIS IS MY FAMILY!!! It took a while for all of this to become official because they had to go through the paper work and then AFS USA I guess had to filter through the paperwork as well. I just can't believe it all worked out. I have Skyped several times with the family already and adore them! My two little sisters are 2 and 4, Ainara and Nerena. They are the cutest things! I will be living in Paracuellos de Jarama which is 30 minutes from Madrid, and I can take the metro there! They are still working out my school because they would like for me to go to the school Nere and Nara go to, but they don't know if there are any spaces open. The grandparents also live in Paracuellos and apparently I will be spending a lot of time with them. Also, the other set of grandparents live in Seville, and we will go there for Christmas and a festival(Feria de Seville). I literally am counting down the days until we leave, and I would love to just go right now.
And so this is where the journey begins. I have a new home. I am going to have a new life. I am going to have new friends. And I am going to make new memories. It's such an interesting thought to me that right now, I have no clue of what is in store for me, but in 3 months or so, it will be just normal. And then a year from now, I will be about to leave, and I will look back and wonder where all the time went.
