Sail away!

Imagine yourself. Describe your life. Your parents, your friends, your school, your hometown, your siblings, your country, your traditions, your home. Your life is pretty great right? Now imagine leaving all of this, all of your basis, all of what you ever knew. Feeling ok about it? Congrats! You could and should be an exchange student.
Exchange students are the ones who dare. Dare to explore, to discover themselves as well as another culture, to take risks, to step out of their confort zone.

Because that's the truth. Being an exchange student is amazing. An life-altering, incredible, mind-blowing year. But it's also very, very hard. Because you have to start all over again, in a new language if that's not enough. You have to get used to a whole new bunch of things, including a family, a school system, a culture, the food, the weather (I can't stress the last two enough).
You probably won't understand a thing for a few weeks (or months), people might make fun of you for it, they're just kidding of course, but still, won't be fun for you. You're going to do things, usual for you, but totally inapropriate for people in your host country. You'll see your friends in your host country go to parties together, or your family gather for a birthday, and you just won't be there.

It can get pretty tough. But of course, this is a year you won't forget, for so many good reasons, The first time you dream in your host language is pretty amazing. And the feeling won't get away. Being able to understand jokes, hearing your little sister says she loves you, tasting all the amazing traditional dishes, being treated like a Hollywood star because you're that "cool exchange-student". I could go on for hours. It is, without a doubt, one hell of an year.

So if you're thinking about it, take the step, sail away! It's an adventure. If you want it, you're ready for it.
I'm going to finish this by telling you what literally everybody who's been on an exchange year will tell you :

IT'S NOT A YEAR IN A LIFE. IT'S A LIFE IN A YEAR.