Catching Up With The Swedes! Important School Abroad!

Rachel Meyerchick Start Date: Jul 5, 2015 - End Date: Aug 8, 2015
  • Gothenburg, Sweden

My Travel Story

by: Rachel Meyerchick Start Date: Jul 5, 2015 - End Date: Aug 8, 2015
Hello all people of the world and more! First off let me say that I am not here to just take money, I am here to raise the rest of the funds that I need to go on this trip. Considering that i have a very short amount of time to raise this and that I had to quit my job to take care of my grandmother who has been in and out of the hospital due to her cancer I was not able to stay. I was able to save some money but unforunatly not all of it which completely saddenss me. But to as of how I came across the school abroad let me tell you this story (yay for long boring life stories right!?) I was raised with my grandmother all my life, she would always talk to me about this mystical place that she was from called Sweden. She would talk about how she use to wake up early every morning and pick fresh strawberries from the feild with her mother, and how she would make beautiful flower crowns for the important holiday called Midsummer. Being young this fascinated me, I would listen in awe. I loved how we would celebrate the Swedish holidays, eat the traditional foods, and how she taught me some of the language. This made me so curious to what else was out in the world and what it had to offer. As I got older living in (and still am) a small town in texas limited our places to go, we did'nt travel very often muchless outside the U.S or even the state. I had such a desire to leave this place. But fun fact! Everything costs money! Which still didnt stop me from dreaming. I was forced to imagine what other places looked like. I grew up in a town where there are no trees/forests, water/beaches, mountains, I have never experienced actual snow, just dry hot desert land. I felt isolated. But when in doubt I would ask my grandmother to tell me stories from when she lived in Sweden, she would talk about the white fluffy snow, the towering trees, the majestic mountains, and great wildlife that surrounded her. This made my dream turn into a great desire.

When I had reached the 9th grade one day in class I had been called into the office to where I was greeted by my mother with a peculiar look on her face. Something had gone wrong. We drove to my grandmothers house so she could announce the news to me. She had cancer and only a few years to live. The look she had on her face will forever be engraved in my heart. You would've thought I'd be the first to start breaking down but instead she was. She felt bad for not ever taking me to her home town and meeting the rest of my family, she felt as if she wasted my life away. But I reasured her for our family is not rich and is hard working, it was not in her countrol to be able to take me. I tried to cheer her up and baked her some cookies, then took her for a walk. Like old times she talked to me about her younger days in Sweden, it brought joy to both of us.

I asked my grandmother if maybe we could go in a few years together but she had told me she was to old to travel that far although it would be nice, plus she said for the time it would take for us to save the money she would no longer be around. This broke my heart. She had hope that I would one day visit to where my family begun, she said it was her wish to live vicariously through me.

When going to school I would always hear of foreign exchange students but never did I know I was able to leave the country and be one. That was until I was on the internet browsing for pictures of Sweden for a school project when I saw something called Greenheart travel a program for high school students to travel to any countrey they desire and study there. Excitment flushed through my vains. I looked into it, spoke to my family about it, even my grandmother who was more than happy to hear. "Could what was a distant dream turn into real life reality, is this the chance I can finally escape and look into my family history" , I remeber thinking to myself as I sat down stunned.Not only could I study and learn more while being there but I could travel abroad and experience a new life. I had given up my summer vacation money for this for this means my life and more to me. I hope to come back and tell my grandmother what a fantastic place it was and all that I got to study. My dream is to look back before shes gone and tell her, I did it for you, if I could I would raise this money and send her so she could have one last goodbye for her home, but she belives I can do this.

She always told me, home is not where your born, but where your heart is.

Thank you. (:
  • Gothenburg, Sweden

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