Experience is more important than anything else!

When I was in college, I stayed with a family in America for three weeks. This summer I visited them again and I remembered some episodes of my first stay. I had amazing time with my family there.

For the first few days, I was very nervous and my host mother told me to call her and her husband “mom and dad”, even though they were too young for me to call them so, so that I could relax as if I was at my home. She also hugged me a lot. It was rather uncomfortable for me to hug at first but now I have gotten used to it and I like hugging very much.

On the first Sunday, they took me to a church and we went to an electric appliances store to look for a fridge. We checked some huge fridges there. I felt as if I was a part of the family.

On the way back home, we stopped by “Target” a kind of discount store and bought some food, green tea and ice cream for supper. The green tea sold in America contained sugar and I was so surprised when I drank it for the first time.

After dinner, we had the ice cream. To my surprise, it contained cookie dough in it. I’ve never had cookie dough in ice cream in Japan and I don’t think we eat cookie dough in Japan. That’s because it is said that if you eat cookie dough you get a stomach ache in Japan. The ice cream was actually delicious and I didn’t get a stomach ache at all. I felt culture difference many times in America and it was really interesting.

Almost every night, I spent my time with my three host sisters. The third one often read me picture books. She was only 4 years old at that time and she couldn’t read letters yet. Therefore, she always made up her original stories looking at pictures and at the end of every page, she finished the story with the sentence “I don’t know why.” It was so pretty and I liked her original stories very much.

I spent my days like this doing ordinary things in America. It might be boring for others but it was really wonderful experience for me because I could be a part of the family. I treasure my experience with them in America.
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