I bet you have no idea. I feel like I don’t even realise what I am doing in just a few hours. Would you like to know what it is?

I am boarding a flight at Sydney airport headed towards Zurich airport ! Yes, you read that correctly! Tomorrow signifies the official beginning of my exchange year. And whilst I am very sad that I will be hugging my family goodbye beneath the departures sign I am also unexplainably excited to jump head first into an amazing, adventurous year! Although right now I feel weirdly calm which completely surprises me since I thought I would be jumping up and down the night before I leave. But then I realised that the reason I don’t feel that many emotions at the moment is because the thought of what I am doing seems to ridiculous to be true. I keep repeating this phrase to myself; ‘you are leaving for Switzerland tomorrow’ hoping that it will trigger some response but I keep thinking ‘that is so not going to happen’. I bet tomorrow I am going to wake up full of excitement and nerves because it will suddenly be completely real. Instead of saying tomorrow I will be saying today!

For my last full day in Australia I did a couple of things. In the morning Mum, my brother, his friend, and Kristine (the exchange student from Denmark) went to Palm Beach. We walked up to the lighthouse before it got to hot and then headed back down for a swim (even though most of the beach was closed due to strong current). Then I requested we have a traditional aussie lunch of a sausage sizzle (but of course mum made us have lettuce and avocado on ours!). Then mum and I did a little bit of packing and shopping in the arvo before she treated me to a special going away present: a foot massage!

Packing has been succesful and so far we are only 5kg over the limit 🙁 Mum kept freaking out that I didn’t have warm enough clothes so we ducked to the shops and bought a woolen jumper. All the shop assistants were confused why on a 30 degree day we were searching for winter jumpers and we had to hurriedly explain that I was going on exchange. I sometimes wonder how many people there are who have told me that exchange ‘will be amazing’ and ‘you’ll have a great time’ also ‘I have been there and you’re going to love it’. so just a warning to any future exchange students reading be prepared to answer hundreds of questions about your exchange.

Today I also recieved a package from my cousins that contained my survive exchnage kit. So shout out to the Carters for the lovely gift. In the box was a jar of vegemite, a couple of tim tam bites (that were completely melted. Kristine and I went to have one but they we complete and utter slush) and finally the cutest part of the present which I will let you see for yourself:

Anyway that was a very long post which will hopefully force me to continue writing long posts overseas! Thanks for reading if you made it to the end.

Jaimee x