Lost in Translation: An American in Italy

Ciao! My name is Austen Brodeen, I am 17 years old, and I'm currently a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Fort Collins, Colorado, outbound to Crema, Italy! Coming from a German family and having the amazing opportunities to experience Germany and German culture, I wanted to expand my horizons and immerse myself into another culture, one completely different than Germany, so I decided to go to Italy on a month long exchange program to Italy back in 2015. It was in just that month alone when I absolutely fell in love with Italy and grew a long lasting fascination with the culture. After my short term exchange, I eventually convinced my parents to allow me to apply for a year long high school exchange program to Italy, which took a while to do, but it was eventually a success! Back in December 2016, I had my Rotary Youth Exchange District interview in Cheyenne, WY, where I was officially accepted onto the program! Going to Italy for my senior year meant that I had to graduate a whole...

The day I have been looking forward to for a long time now, is only less than two weeks away! On September 2nd, 2017 I will be leaving Fort Collins, Colorado to go to Crema, Italy for an entire year through Rotary International. Being that it is only two weeks away, I'm still not in the mindset of leaving yet, as I am currently more focused on worrying about taking the SAT before I leave and learning Italian through Rosetta Stone. On my year abroad, I will be staying with three different host families and attending an Italian language high school (Liceo Linguistico) where I will have to come out of my comfort zone and make new friends. For the past few weeks now, I have been in contact with some of the other exchange students going to Italy via Whatsapp and Snapchat. All of us are bonding over what we are most apprehensive about in regards to spending a whole year in Italy. Here's what we are all mostly nervous about... Speaking Italian, and only Italian Leaving our friend...