My awkward moments on Exchange.

Even though I left Italy with a good knowledge of English, there was still a lot that I needed to learn in order to speak fluently. I was only 16 and it was my first time being on my own abroad. I think everyone has to go through embarrassing moments. Right there we might feel like we want to disappear or never talk about what just happened, but months later you are just going to laugh at all of these like if they were all big jokes.

Misunderstandings.

As I started school I went to a sandwich place for lunch almost every day for like a month before realizing that I could simply spend less at the cafeteria or even just bring food from home. Anyways, at this place, you could choose all the ingredients you wanted in your sandwich by marking them on a piece of paper and then check a box to state whether you wanted to eat your food at the table or you wanted it to go. Well, as I give my paper to the cashier she looks at me and says "Do you want your receipt? ". I just stare at her for a few seconds thinking whether I remembered to check the box or not. Mhhh who knows. "No, I want it to go, thanks. " I say. She replies to me by saying again "Do you want your receipt? ". Well guys, all I was hearing was "Do you want to sit? " as in "Do you want your food here or to go? ". *palm face*.

Weak memory.

Other moments could be the ones when I'd bump into people and they would say "Hi Chris, what's up? " and I wouldn't know what to say because first of all 'what's up' is more like a greeting than a real question, and secondly because I couldn't remember who they were. The story of my exchange.

In class.

It was also awkward when I told my counselor that I wanted to change my English class because I did not understand the teacher and she went straight to her and told her I had problems with her teaching. Like, seriously? Couldn't she just switch me to another class without having to tell her? Anyways it turned out I could not change and this is why she tried to fix things.

The things you've got to do when these situations happen are:

• don't take it too seriously, you cannot go on exchange and be an expert of everything already, it happens.
• laugh about it, if your friends see that you don't take it too seriously they might stop teasing you lol.
• write it down, so years apart you can read it and remind yourself how fun your exchange was.

I even learned to laugh at the pictures my host dad took of me my first day of school. I don't even like my outfit but hey, I had tennis practice after so I was already dressed sportively. Don't I look a little bit American?

Photo gallery