Saying Goodbye

This was a draft i did a while ago but never posted so here it is anyway!

This past week has been one of the saddest weeks here as I said goodbye to my two best friends on Tuesday and Wednesday! Although I only new them for 5 months of my life, they probably know and understand more about me than those friends I have back home who I have known for most of my life. I found this amazing quote on an exchange student group on facebook and couldn't help but share it with you all!

"I am an exchange student. How do you know what is a dream if you never accomplished one? How do you know what is an adventure if you never took part in one? How do you know what is anguish if you never said goodbye to your family and friends with your eyes full of tears? How do you know what is being desperate, if you never arrived in a place alone and could not understand a word of what everyon......e else was saying? How do you know what is diversity if you never lived under the same roof with people from all over the world? How do you know what is tolerance, if you never had to get used to something different even if you didn’t like it. How do you know what is autonomy, if you never had the chance to decide something by yourself? How do you know what it means to grow up, if you never stopped being a child to start a new course? How do you know what is to be helpless, if you never wanted to hug someone and had a computer screen to prevent you from doing it? How do you know what is distance, if you never, looking at a map, said “I am so far away”? How do you know what is a language, if you never had to learn one to make friends? How do you know what is patriotism, if you never shouted “ I love my country” holding a flag in your hands? How do you know what is an opportunity, if you never caught one? How do you know what is pride, if you never experienced it for yourself at realizing how much you have accomplished? How do you know what is a friend, if the circumstances never showed you the true ones. How do you know what is a family, if you never had one that supported you unconditionally? How do you know what are borders, if you never crossed yours, to see what there was on the other side? How do you know what is imagination, if you never thought about the moment when you would go back home? How do you know the world, if you have never been an exchange student?

I am now on 5 weeks holiday, woohoo, first holidays of the year, and guess what!!!! I'm off to Rio babyyyyy! My old host mum a short term exchange student from Turkey who she taking to travel up the coast of Brasil and she asked me to go with her! Ten days of travel, four of those which will be in Rio! I am so excited, and can't wait for the 5th of July.

I had my first cultural disagreement with my family the other day! Here in Brasil it is normal for students to stay living with their parent for a very long time. My family said it would even be considered normal for kids to stay until they are 40 if they haven't married yet! I felt like I had walked into a country set in the mid 1900's. It was so strange for me to think children here rely on their parents for so long, they don't learnt to live off their own money, make their own decisions, and be able to rely on only themselves until such a late age. Unlike NZ where a lot of us move out of home for university, here it is more usual for children to stay in the same city for university. This is partly to do with cost, but even those working full time will not find their own place to live and are not required to help out in anyway at home. One thing my host parents said to me is 'but we like our children, they will always be our babies and we want them living at home'. It was as if they thought that when we move out of home at 18 it wasn't to learnt to live on our own two feet but instead  its because 'our parents don't love us'. I had to stop myself telling them everyone needs to let go of their children and let them live life independently. However I knew they weren't going to understand or agree with this and in the end is just showed my how diverse cultures are over the world!