[ISUKappa]

We hosted an exchange student from Finland my senior year of high school. It was a mostly good experience, but very difficult for me to adjust to having someone my age in the house again. (I'm the youngest and my older sisters had been out of the house for 7 and 4 years). We weren't BFF, like I had envisioned, and that led to a lot of jealousy and hurt feelings because she was the cool foreign exchange student and I was just same, boring old me. BUT, we did get along fairly well and had good moments and memories.

It took her a bit to get adjusted - difference in culture, drinking age, etc... but she did fairly well after a few months. She had an allowance from her family for spending money, would call home 1-2 times/month and wrote letters and emails to friends and family back in Finland. We all sat down not long after she arrived and put down some basic guidelines and expectations so we were all on the same page WRT expenses and what she was going to contribute to our family life and vice versa.

We kept somewhat in touch for a year or so after she went back to Finland. My parents spent some time with her one summer while visiting Europe and we recently just got back in touch on Facebook.