in with the new out with the old!

Q2: what about being in the Greece area is a new experience for you?

If I would’ve written this before the trip, my answer would be something like this: being on an 8-hour time difference from my family, having layovers or rushes during flight exchanges, doing volunteer work overseas, and being in a foreign country with people I haven’t known my whole life. While all of those things remain true, there are so many more experiences that were new to me. Ultimately the trip as a whole had very few things that weren’t new to me. First, cold showers, cold pools, and cold oceans. I am a small person, and I get cold VERY easily, so being in cold environments is simply not my thing. I despise winter, and even when it is 105 degrees outside, I will still take a hot shower, so it is very easy to say that all the run-ins with cold water were not my jam… but I overcame. Another new experience for me was being sick abroad. I have a terrible immune system, so being sick is almost normal to me, but being sick abroad with not a lot of time to rest, and only medicines from Faith's sacred pouch was definitely a new experience… but I adapted. On a similar note, running into every single food allergy in the same week was new. The language barrier held up pretty nicely when it came to asking if molasses was in the salad dressing, or if bananas were on my pancakes, but I survived (barely). Moreover, being the minority when it came to skin color, gender, and language was a completely eye-opening experience. Although many people did know how to speak English, it wasn’t their first language, and I often felt so rude while trying to communicate because I was so far from meeting anyone halfway. This showed me that I need to be more prepared before going somewhere with a different language as their primary because Americans aren’t all that important. Overall, a lot of what I experienced was new to me and I truly didn’t expect that going into the trip.Read more