One of the most challenging experiences I’ve had so far was moving to the US from Paraguay (South America) when I was fifteen years old. It was not easy to leave my family and friends behind and start a new life here in the US. I found it very hard to adapt to having a new school, new classmates, new language (although I went to a bilingual school back home), and it was pretty much a very different lifestyle. I was moving to Key Biscayne, this little island connected to Miami by the Rickenbacker Causeway. Key Biscayne is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in my life, the sun is out pretty much everyday and the sky is radiant blue and there are palm trees everywhere. After a few days I’ve fallen in love with this place, it was so amazing and beautiful nothing like I’ve ever seen before. All my anger went away and I started to enjoy Miami.

Technology made it easier for me to keep in touch with my friends and family back home, and of course that helped me overcome the feeling of homesickness. However, a few weeks in, I started to realize that this same technology was playing against my desire to adapt to my new life by preventing me to create new relationships. Miami has this particular smell, the ocean creates this strong salty but extraordinary essence. Just by stepping outside of your house into the street you can already start enjoyed the fresh air and the sounds of the kids playing basketball or games in front of their house, those childish giggles and laughter that makes us all smile. Miami’s weather is the best thing in the world, the intense heat that when you touch your cars door handle you get a third degree burn.

On my first day of school I was really nervous, I had butterflies and my stomach and didn't feel really good. So many thoughts were going through my head like what where people going to think about me, would I like the school and would people treat me nicely. Since I even got out of there car I already felt something magical about this place, all my nervous thoughts went away and I felt relaxed and amazingly happy. The school was just as beautiful as everything else in Key Biscayne. The School was called Immaculata La-Salle Highschool, it was in front of the ocean, it had this amazingly cared green grass football field and a giant gym with a weight room and a basketball field it was like paradise to me.

Everything was so much more different than in Paraguay, the people, the environment just everything. Students at school were really nice and friendly. I had this feeling that I just belonged there. A positive thing that I had was that my whole family lived in Miami, because my older brother whom is 21 studies in Boca Raton just 40 minutes away from Miami. Having all my family there made me feel safe and happy, I enjoyed my families company every single day. Having my three brothers and my father and mother made me feel complete. Something that really helped me move on and make many friends was a classmate of mine whom I think he was my brother from antoher mother, he thought in the same way as me and acted the same way, since the first day I talked to him I felt he was like a brother, someone I have known my whole life.

After living in Miami for two years I already love Miami and everything in it. I consider myself very lucky to be able to live in a city as awesome as Key Biscayne.