It seems like yesterday that we arrived. We were so scared, lost, shy... everything was new for us; the school, the people, our host families. It was something totally different from our "real life". Weeks before we came, everything was like a dream... it was something between anxiety, fear, hope and happiness. All those feelings were consuming us. Then that dream was not a dream anymore; it was real!!.

A difficult start, hard first and second month... but over time we got used to it. It was not that strange or unknown. Culture, customs, food, thoughts, language, friends, teachers, everything started to seem familiar, it became a part of our life, our "new life"... that in the end was not really difficult to handle.

And now what? We are used to this life and it is time to go home. It is the end of 9 months; months full of spectacular things, special moments, and most importantly... great friends!!!!! Friends... All started with a mixture of many countries, many languages, many different thoughts and that was the great part; try to put together all those different things into one, the one we all were related with, Vancouver!. It was like a connection of all fears, likes and dislikes, understanding of each other. It just happened, a relationship started to rise; learning about others, knowing them and getting along with them. Friends are hard to find but leave them is even harder. Friends forever, friends that maybe we are not going to see again or maybe we will. One never knows, but friends are going to be there, no matter where, in the same country or the other side of the world.

Now is time to put together all the things we have learned, the good and the bad ones, all the feelings, the experiences. It is time to move on. Maybe it is the end for us but for others it is just the beginning; the beginning of something amazing, something we already lived. It is time to leave all those things behind even if we don't want to; it is time to start another chapter of our lives. We have to realize that we just have a few days left and it is going to be difficult to say goodbye but is going to be good to say hello. Happiness and sadness are going to be part of us again. But that's the way it is. Just think in the good moments we had and try to live it up!

I wish you all the best! ...by Clara Victoria Serna

EF Insider Production Team: Dec 2002
Design Director
Fernanda Assumpcao Pinto
Designers
Silvia Gili & Philipp L. Lange
Advertising Director
Clara Victoria Serna
Entertainment Editor
Henrik Oye
Culture Club Editor
Elsa Vandaele
Feature Editor
Philipp L. Lange

Contributers:
Nanako Fujitani
Young Seok Nam
Svenja Muller
Penelope Conde
Min Ju Lee
Georgina Gonzalez
Katharina Schroers
Pablo Felix B.

Technical Support and
Website construction:
Yong and Gary