Nearing the End

Hello again. I had planned to update earlier, but I got distracted and/or forgot. But you can all stop crying now and begin to rejoice.

Anyway, I have about a week left here in Venezuela, which is sad. I'm sad about it, but I'm also excited to travel, and excited to return to New Zealand at the end of it all. It's quite strange actually, I'm not sure how to feel. I have conflicting feelings, one moment I'll be quite sad, and the next moment I'll be excited. It's quite exhausting.

We had a nice big AFS meeting thing, where all the people associated with AFS someway in Margarita, came together to hang out, eat, and talk about stuff. I had to get up and speak a little bit about my experience in Venezuela, and it was alright. My Spanish has improved a lot, as you would expect. I was speaking to a few people that are going on an exchange next year, and they told me that my Spanish was really good. That made me quite happy. I've found that speaking and understanding the conversation is much easier when you're dictating the subject. When I'm more passively participating in a conversation I find I don't understand as much.

I think I forgot to tell you all that I went to Caracas for a few days a couple of months ago. I went with my host brother for my host cousin's Confirmation. If you don't know what that is, don't worry, neither did I. It's this ceremony type thing that Catholics, and I think maybe people of some other religions, have to signify the beginning of religious responsibility, or something like that, I'm not sure. The Confirmation ceremony thing was quite boring, but being in Caracas was fun. I stayed with my cousins and I really enjoyed it, they're all very nice. They live in an apartment complex that more of their family also live in, so they can visit and hang out with each other whenever they want. It was nice being around so many people, a change from how it is in my home in Margarita. I played Playstation with my host cousins, which was quite fun. My favourite part was being introduced by my host cousins or host Aunt to other people as "my cousin/nephew", it's nice hearing that.

Anyway, I'm at the point in my exchange when I'm experiencing lots of "lasts", you know, like last time I'll go to school (although that actually happened several weeks ago). It's quite sad. I leave Margarita Island early morning on Wednesday the 25th, and go to Caracas for an ending camp thing, and then I leave Caracas in the afternoon on Thursday the 26th. Just writing about leaving Margarita Island is making me a bit sad. But I have traveling to look forward to, so that makes me a bit less sad.

I've been thinking about things that I'm going to miss, and things that I won't. The things I will miss outnumber the things I won't, which I guess is a good thing, it just makes it harder to leave. Actually, the only thing I can think of right now that I won't miss is seeing stray dogs and cats pretty much everywhere I go. But there are several things that I can think of that I will miss. I'll miss playing football here, my host mum and family, my friends, and I'll particularly miss being able to speak Spanish all the time. I know I won't be able to speak Spanish as much in New Zealand.

I don't really have anything more to say right now, so I guess that's it from me for now. Thanks for reading.