An English Introduction

Well, well. I guess this is the official launch of my blog inglés. Up until now my blog has been entirely in Norwegian. Except for that little description on top of my page, but that barely counts.

The reason I've chosen to desert my roots and embrace my western heritage is because I have family who is simply dying to know all the juicy details of my everyday life. Seriously, though. It's because I know other people than my friends and family in Norway who could have interest in what my AFS-experience will be like. Another reason is that I'd like to help anyone considering taking a year abroad by sharing my experiences through my exchange. I imagine a blog like this would have aided me in taking the decision to live with a family in another country for a year, though it was something I have wanted to for some years now. And then of course, I want to keep in contact with my friends, and I’ve never gotten into mass-emailing.

Let me introduce myself. I am Bjørn David. I am currently 16 years old, and live just outside the capital of Norway. I am an exchange student, and I will be leaving for Mexico on the 25th of august. I've been asked many times why I chose Mexico as my exchange country, and I don't believe I have ever given a satisfying answer. The truth is I'm not sure.

When picking a country, there were three choices that tempted me. First I thought about Japan. I love Japan, and I haven't even been there. There is something about the atmosphere around ancient Japan that really captures me. I believe it's partly through Asian film that I have this interest in the country. I know little of the country itself. I know little of the country's culture and politics, and it's because these things aren't to me, like they are to just about everyone else, the things I think about when I hear the name "Japan", that I like the country so much. Then again, I might only have considered Japan because I think Samurai are unbelievably cool. I didn't choose Japan however, because it is things like culture and politics that would affect my experience. Japan seems like a very difficult country to get used, and it was a challenge I didn't feel ready for.

Japan is the 30^th densest country in the world, according to wikipedia

Egypt was the second country I considered. My mom suggested this, and it was a good suggestion. Learning Arabic would have been amazing. And it is a very unique country. We also took going to an international school into consideration with Egypt. Something did however dissuade me from doing it.

Finally, my friend Runar and I decided we’d pick Mexico. Eventually we had come to look only at Spanish-speaking countries. The obvious country to go to would be Spain, and at first we did intend to go there, but we wanted to travel through AFS and they didn’t send to Spain. Therefore we had to go to Latin-America, but we had no idea what country would be best. Then one day we decided Mexico, and that’s that. When I get back, I hope answering the question will be a lot easier.

The family I will be staying at lives in a small town called Tonatico. It is southwest of Mexico City. About two hours by car I’ve heard. Tonatico seems similar to the town I’ve lived in for the most of my life up until this summer. It has 18, 000 inhabitants (which in fact is 6 times more than the town I used to live in), and is apparently quite conservative.

You might be staring at the roof of my future home

In my family there is a mother and father, and I’ll have a brother and sister. The sister is my age, her name is Erika. Manuel, my brother, is 12. I haven’t quite understood what my father works with, but it seems as if he’s a principal, maybe at the school I’ll be going to. His name is Juan Alberto. My mother, Dolores, works at the kindergarten, educating children from the ages 3-5. This will probably be of the most use to me the first couple of weeks. The family is Catholic, and apparently attends church very often. This will need some taking used to. I’m not a very religious person, though I’m not 100% atheist either. I don’t belong to any religion, but I feel it is mainly because I haven’t found one I believe in. Statements like these are what I usually disagree with myself on. As you might understand, I’m quite confused about religion. More importantly, my family has a parrot. His name is Andy. Andy is a great name for a parrot. It’s too late to be writing any more, but at least I’ve written my first post in English. Go me!