First Glimpse

Two days ago I was cleaning my room when I heard my Mom yell "Derin! Derin! Come here quick!" I ran to the kitchen and I found her talking in Spanish and confusion enveloped me. I walked towards the computer and saw two faces. One was an older woman about 47 - 48 and the other was a young boy that of 12 - 13. I quickly realized that this was my Host Mom(Ana) and Host Brother(Adrian). Let me tell you how excited I was. I WAS THIS EXCITEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe that I was face to face with my future parents(for a year that is). My mother was talking to her in Spanish and honestly I was struggling to keep up. Soon my whole family was surrounding the computer screen and everyone was trying to talk at the same time. Finally my father got control of the talking stick and says to (Mom #2) " My name is Cem, what was yours again?" all the while he's pointing at her and using his famous Turkish hand movements. Fortunately for my Dad, and me, she replied in English and started to speak English to everyone after that.Turns out she is an English professor at a high school. After that pointed to Adrian, then onto my Host Dad(Fernando-Dad #2). We all went on to talk about how excited we all are, stories(mainly from my Dad and Grandma0, and much more so much more that we talked for more than an hour and a half! Long story short, I was extremely happy to talk with them and I can not, can not, can not, wait to leave for my life changing experience. Sincerely, Derin C. Uras

Bio

Hola me llamo Derin y voy a la Ponferrada, Espana.
I'm currently living in Phoenix, Arizona and I will be traveling to Spain for my Junior year in high school.

World travel has always been apart of my life starting when I was merely 3 years old. I traveled with my parents, of course, to Turkey and I have been revisiting every summer. In fact just this last summer I spent two months with only my grandmother, who knows very little English, in Turkey and I was very fortunate to be engulfed in Turkish living from going to school there for a week to befriending people five times my age. I've developed an unconditional love for other cultures and I know that this trip will be the best way of learning about the world and how it really is.

My Mother traveled to Turkey for her exchange and my brother, Kent, traveled to Argentina for his. I've also traveled to Turkey like I said unfortunately I still can't speak fluently in Turkish but I definitely can hold a conversation with the citizens there.

This blog will be "The Hub"(as I like to call it) for my trip and it soon will fill with posts and pictures of my life changing journey across the world.