What's out of the box.

I think that the thing that has a bigger impact on me during this exchange year is the fact that you're not only making friends in a different country that will probably stick with you for your whole life, no matter how distant you are...but you're making friends that are from all around the world. The other day I went to Chick-full-a with a bunch of friends and at some point I realized that we were 8 people sitting at the table: me, Katie (the only american), an exchange srudent from Germany, one from Denmark, two from Thailand and two from Sweden. It was amazing how there were 6 different countries sitting at that table. People who were born and lived in different parts of the world were all together that day, eating the same thing, speaking the same language to understand each other, sharing the things that makes us different. Sharing our cultures, our languages, our holidays, our memories and talking about our home countries. This is what I'm learning right now. That it doesn't matter what country you're from or what language you speak. We all experience things in the same way (even if we all react differently), we all feel the same emotions, we all define friendship as the same bond.
It's something that makes you bigger, and fuller, when you realize how varied the world is and how rare and special it is to have the opportunity to share and exchange with other people the little things that make you, you.
When I realized this, while I was sitting there eating my chicken sandwich with three different continents, it almost made me cry. Because I also realized that I will probably remember that single moment for the rest of my life, and that just sitting there, talking with those people had such a big impact on me. Those are the things that make you learn. Those are the things that make you grow and make you more conscious of how big the world is. It also makes you feel small..but not unsignificant. You realize that you are extremely important. Because you're changing the lives of those people, just as much as they are changing yours. And that is what I will always be grateful for, thanks to this experience: to know for sure that in some way you're making the difference in someone else's life. Someone that you would have never met if it wasn't for your insanely brave idea to "leave the safe harbor, and catch the trade winds in your sails" out, to the open ocean. To those insecurities and fears which you know that after all, they won't do anything if not make you stronger and braver.
And even if it's hard sometimes, even if when I am alone at night and I start thinking about home and I feel a little empty, wishing that my friends and family where here with me (expecially in those special moments that I've been waiting for years and I never imagined that I would have seen that special movie or read that special book without the friends that I spent my life with); I have to remember what brought me here. 8715.450 kilometers from home.
Curiosity. It pushes you to the point where you are ready to leave everything you've always had to get something that is not guaranteed. Break the boundaries and step out of the comfort zone. Walk into the unknown. Out of the box. Leave your home to find another.
And that is the point. We call home the place where we feel comfortable. Where we have friends and a family. Where we feel safe. Where our heart is. So home, after all, is not a place on a map. Home is the people that make you feel like it. And right now, Idaho is home for me just as much as Italy is.
I haven't forgotten where I came from, and I can't wait to know where I'm gonna go. But now I perfectly know where I am. I'm living every day knowing that I won't have any chance to get it back, once that it is passed. Life is made of finite moments, and the fact that every single one of them just hits you and then it's gone forever sometimes makes me sad and scared. The only things that remain are the memories that will keep alive those moments. So let's do our best to make every second unforgettable. Let's change lives. Let's explore, let's dream, let's discover.