Of all the places to meet

We were quite possibly the four most random people you might expect to meet in a small Irish town, not to mention the four most random people you might expect to become friends.  Four girls: one German, one American, one Brazilian, and one Japanese.  Think about it- what are the odds that we would all be in the same county at generally the same time, and become close friends in the space of months, before spreading out over the globe again?
I miss them a lot.  We had fun times, walking along Tramore Beach and eating chocolate biscuits and watching movies.  We were four of the older students, and among the most long-term exchange students that arrived in August; I was the first to leave, and Leticia went back to Brazil a month later.  Linda and Yuki will stay in Ireland until late June.  All of us made so many friends, and while we may have considered others "best friends", I do think we had a different kind of bond.  I mean, all four of us shared the same experiences of homesickness, dealing with a new culture, and working through struggles with our host families.  It was easier to talk about those things with each other because we could all relate to it.  And because of our different cultures/languages, things always got interesting when we got together.
Anyways, I've been missing them a lot lately, and I figured, what's a blog good for if not for processing things through writing?
So here's my small tribute to our "United Nations"...

LINDA
She's our German, always agreeable and enthusiastic, nodding excitedly and saying "Yah, yah!" whenever we made new plans.  Always positive, even when talking about her own struggles with her host family or homesickness.  I've always heard and read of people who had eyes that "danced", but had never met anyone who actually possessed such eyes until I met Linda.  She really had sparkling, dark blue eyes that were constantly dancing, her wire-curly hair bobbing to the same rhythm.  I rarely saw her without the echoes of a grin on her face.  I miss you, Linda!  I miss how supportive and fun you were.  I hope whenever I get to Germany, or you get to America, we get to see each other again.

LETICIA
This girl was my surfing buddy.  The poor thing was used to the weather of southern Brazil- which did get cold, she said, but was surely nothing like the Irish sea in November.  Still, she would show up from Waterford every weekend and meet us at the surf place to grab a wetsuit and we'd go freeze our butts off for three hours.  We joked about going on one last lesson in January just to say we did, but were never able to.  Leticia was the kind of gorgeous you wanted to hate, but was sweet in a way you couldn't help but love.  She went with the flow, and always had a good idea for how to fill the day.  She could cheer you up in a second.  Ironically, we live the closest to each other out of the four, but are still nearly 4500 miles apart.

YUKI
Oh, Yuki!  My sweet, stylish Japanese friend.  She lived on the other side of Tramore, but I still saw her at school every day.  She would try anything and wanted to experience everything.  Everyone knew Yuki, and everyone knew she was the sweetest, gentlest person you could ever hope to meet.  She was stunning too, and really good at mixing European and Asian fashion into the most amazing outfits.  One of my favorite memories was when it snowed in Tramore and we got a week off of school... There was this big hill that overlooked the sea, and everyone gathered there to sled.  The problem was that no sleds were to be found- so people used skateboards, surfboards (imagine five inches of snow covering everything, and a guy strolling down the street carrying a surfboard), and anything else they could find.  Yuki and I and a bunch of our friends wrapped ourselves in large black trash bags and slid down the hill on our stomachs, then when it got too cold we trekked up to SuperValue for some really cheap hot chocolate.

And then there was me.  But you already know enough about me.

 So yeah...  I miss those three so much.  I miss everyone I met over there so much.  We hope to have a "reuniting trip" somewhere- we jokingly speculated somewhere in Africa or Australia, as those are the only two major continents we don't have covered.  I hope we really are able to get together again one day.

Yuki on the left (with our friend Jill)

Leticia (with chocolate biscuit)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linda and Leticia