I changed Hostfamily...again

Do you remember that I told you about me changing out of my first family? Well, now I got out of there again. But whereas I really liked my first family and have visited them several times since I moved out, this is less likely to happen with the second family. I actually went back once to return a towel that I accidentally took from them. But that is different. It had been foreseeable for a while in advance, I spent an evening with the family that said they could take me (I had been at theirs before) and then I moved pretty soon after that.

I am now back in a big family. This one consists of the parents Jac and Janice, Slovak exchange student Stela (who I went to Bush craft with) and daughters Olivia (10), Chloë (7) and Morgandy (1). There is also a dog named Jasmine (just like one girl in my first family) who is a little less than a year old. So she doesn’t look like a puppy anymore but still kind of behaves like one. And she is so fluffy!

I now also live where I started my England adventure again, literally five minutes by foot away from my first host family.

I feel like I have to make a point about this being my third family now. Some people reacted rather shocked to this fact, so I am just going to say it: I got out of the first family out of health reasons and am still in contact with them and will keep in contact. And the second change…sometimes a family and a student just don’t match. That doesn’t have anything to do with the student or the family being incapable or inadequate.

There is no point in staying in a family where you don’t feel comfortable in. Now, about a month later, I don’t regret changing out of the family, I don’t regret changing into that second family, I only regret that I waited so long when I knew for far longer that I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my year there.

I know that people thought “Anna, it is only for three more months, pull yourself together”, but no. And I am glad that I didn’t do that. So if you are an exchange student that is facing the end phase of their time abroad: get out of that family that you don’t want to stay in, even if it is just for the last month. No matter if you are in your first or fourth family. All those other people don’t have to live there. You do. So do whatever you have to do to be happy.

(I am sorry that that got a bit cheesy in the end there.)