First of all – yes, bitterly aware that I am painfully late with this blog – or blogging in general – but more travel coming our way this year, so we are back 🙂

The whole family had a little bit of a withdrawal from international travel in 2014. So, to turn it around, we decided to host an exchange student to welcome “international to Georgia”. Martin, from Versailles in France, age 15, joined our family on July 7th as we picked him up from the airport. The kids were super excited and made a big welcome sign for him so he can recognize us. He did and it was fun 3 weeks. We learned a lot about France and I think Martin learned a lot about south, Georgia and US. Here are some examples:

• You can’t take out doggie bags at restaurants in France, eat what you got – but he learned to appreciate the large portions and the fact they will be enough for the next 3 days of lunches. US portions are huge and as an European, I can attest that there is no need for doggie bags in Europe, the portions actually match what you should  eat.
• Video trucks for birthday parties rock – yes, they are very unique for this generation of little people but they please the teenagers too
• Corn on the cob can be just as new and unusual as fried green tomatoes
• Indian restaurant was a biggest hit – granted I love Chai Pani too !
• Walking our basset hounds is not as easy as we think – I guess we are so used to them being slow, sniffing and walking us that we didn’t realize walking them for 10 mins can be a 2 hour event – yes, we thought we lost Martin while sending him for a dog walk – but we found him later with the dog walking him 🙂
• Language immersions works ! I always knew it but it was a good reaffirmation to the boys, as they have seen Martin significantly improve – and noticed it.

So, we really enjoyed having a short-term family member – and may do it again soon, maybe this time from other country. This year though, Lucas will be going to Prague on his own – for a sort of an exchange program. He will be spending 3 weeks with my parents in Prague and in the south of the Czech republic – tending to horses, in the countryside, learning how to horse back ride, doing castle touring with babi/deda- and immersing himself in Czech. Yes, it came around! Now, we are jut discussing what other countries he should be visiting for our exchange program – so watch out, my international friends, we are ready for some real kid swapping ! Who is in?