You are so used to the places and people around you: your friends, your school, the movie theatre, the grocery store. When you move, everything is different. It is new and exciting, but also terrifying and uncomfortable. When I am somewhere new, I try to think of every moment as an opportunity for adventure. Sometimes the adventures are a great success and sometimes they are not, but I try to focus on the positives while figuring out my new home. Little by little, things begin to feel more comfortable and finally, normal.
The first difficulty in moving to my new home in Tenerife was the different language. They speak Spanish here. I had studied some Spanish in school, but it is still always uncomfortable not knowing everything that people are saying around you. Sometimes I felt nervous and scared. I missed the comfort of being able to easily speak English to everyone around me; however, I chose to view this as an opportunity to try something new. I will never improve my Spanish if I do not practice. Some people here speak English, but many do not. Especially at my school, most of the teachers speak only Spanish. It was very intimidating at first to talk to them, so I just sat there silently without speaking. But that was very awkward and no fun, so I decided to be brave and try to talk with them. It was great! The teachers are all very nice and patient if I don't know a word or understand what they are saying. I still get nervous of course, but I try to be brave and make it an exciting new adventure. I have learned so much just from talking with locals. I even have a list on my phone of all the new words that I've learned!
Once I got over my fear of speaking Spanish, many other worries easily resolved themselves and fell into place.
