Wednesday 22 January 2014

Family visit & Home

Long time since last post but this was saved and only now I'm having chance to upload it.

So at the end of the October was the first time I saw my parents and granparents since coming to UWCM. It was so strange and yet so comforting to be around the pople who I consider home. They came to the City after very long drive from Wales and stayed in a nearby hotel where I stayed with them for a night. 

Seeing them for after the longest period I had ever gone without seeing them was emotional to say the least. I will never forget seeing my mums face and seeing her break down into tears. To hear their accents was so surreal as I hadn't heard a strong Welsh accent in person and had to concentrate on what they said in order to understand them.

Showing them around my new home made me feel so grown up. They fell in love with the City just I had when I first explored it. Staying in an hotel and not being surrounded by masses of teenagers made me feel like I had left the UWC bubble and gone back to another world where things were a lot calmer and if I do say so, maybe a little more boring. 

One of the best things about their stay was introducing them to my new family.  Everyone was treated to a little bit of Jonesy's cooking thanks to my mother and gran as well as getting to know them all. My peers and family developed a mutual fondness of each to her and grandpa made a substantial impact on the boys of the boarding house who were now up to date with all the welsh jokes to know.

Saying goodbye to them was weird but I didn't have to wait long at all to see them again as 2 weeks later while giving presentations on UWC I visited home and surprised my brother for his birthday. Seeing the tiny village and small house I grew up in was a crazy experience yet made me miss home even more. By this time I thought I would be used to homesickness, but, it comes and goes with a pace that is out of control. I also attended a local party where I met up with all my old school friends which reminded me why Wales is always home to me.

Returning back to Maastricht made me reflect on what I consider home. I used to think that it was the small house in the tiny Valley, but in reality its just the place where my family are. But, the family doesn't have to be biological as I now consider myself to have two families, the Welsh ones who raised me and my UWCM boarding family which I love just as much. It made me see how lucky I am to have such luck to have two families to call my own and made me appreicate the UWC experience so much more.