Living Arrangements

I checked my email this morning and saw one that I had been waiting for for weeks. The subject line read Intercambio and inside it contained my host family's information for next semester! I found out that I will be living about a 20 minute walk from campus, which is not too bad compared to past participants I have talked to. 

"A" Marks my new home for the upcoming 6 months

After I read the email, I quickly jumped on Facebook to see where my fellow Eau Claire travelers had been placed. Much to my surprise, while reading through everyone's address, I saw one that was the same as mine. Turns out Jeremy and I have the same host family and will be staying together. 

At first, I was a little disappointed to see this. I am really hoping to become fluent while I am abroad. I want to immerse myself in the culture and the language. I wanted to eliminate any chance of people able to speak English, so I would be forced to use my Spanish and improve. My concern was that living with another American would be too tempting of a situation. It will be so easy to just communicate in English, a daily temptation I was hoping to avoid.

However, the longer I thought about, the happier I am that we are living together. Jeremy is a really nice guy, he is super laid back and up for anything. The both of us want to make the most of our experience and are ready to take on any and all adventures. Having another American in the house will most likely help with any homesickness, will be useful when I cannot think of a Spanish word I am trying to use and will be nice to have a friend to do things with. As for the language aspect, since we both want to become fluent, I hope that we will agree to only use English is need be. This will be best for us and best for our host family. It seems rude to communicate in English in front of them because we are shutting them out of the conversation completely. 

Anyway, this whole journey is becoming more real. I can't believe I will be leaving in a month in a half. This name on a page and place on a map will soon become reality.