The arrival

I laugh in spite of myself.  Of course it was the shampoo, what else would it be.  There are streaks of light blue across my clothes and gifts.  The culprit is dead, zipped underneath the lid of my suitcase, its conditioning and hydrating blood fill the clear body bag that was supposed to keep the bottle safe.  My open suitcase looks like modern art, only better, I´m not knocking modern art (it doesn´t need my help just look at the piece entitled ¨Yellow Square¨ that sold for $35,000) but my creation has a backstory that is fun to those watching from a safe distance.
 I had been packing for about a week to make sure I brought everything I needed on my trip.  My clothing was laid out in a large suitcase.  Al the electronics I was going to bring were arranged in my satchel (Indian Jones has one).  The gifts were packed in my carry on, and all the extra necessities were on the dining room table.  It turned out that I did in fact have everything I needed but  the total weight of each bag was over the limit by several pounds.  This is where the shampoo comes in.  The bottle of head and shoulder weighs the most out of any individual item in my bags, coming in at a hefty three pounds.  There are some who might question the idea to bring any shampoo on a trip such as mine much less, three pounds worth.  My response to those questions is, "I know you are but what am I?"  So it´s clear I have to take the shampoo for some reason, but my options are running thin because my family only believes in the "Family size"  containers.  At last my sister finds an abandoned smaller bottle, but it is almost empty.  By now we have about fifteen minute before we leave for the airport.  Just as all hope seemed lost my mom decided that we fill up the small bottle halfway with the bigger bottle, once again demonstrating her wisdom and cool headed leadership that got her democratically elected as Mommy for life.
Jump ahead several hours past some last minute gifts from my family along with some tears (not my tears, because I´m a man, a big strong man), and I´m in transit somewhere over the atlantic.  My arms are wrapped around my stomach but in a discreet way, so no one else will know how sick I´m feeling.  I don´t know if it is my emotions, or the microwaveable airplane dinner that contained beef flavored meat product.  But somehow I think the idea of leaving all that I have grown up with for an unceratin year in a foreign country has upset my stomach (So maybe I´m not such a big strong man).  The plane lands in San Sebastian and I´m just hoping that I don´t vomit on the family when I see them.  The terminal is the smallest I have ever seen and I was on the only plane at the airport.  I open the first door to the room the with baggage carousels and through some glass doors I see three people whom I recognize from the pictures I received through email.  I studied the photos the night before so I did not make a bad impression, hug the wrong person, and have them thinking "Americans really are that strange."  My host mom, brother, and sister have huge smiles to match mine, and as soon as I embrace my host mother my stomach calms, and I´m relaxed.  I return the wrong way through a one way door to the baggage claim area beacause I had forgotten my checked luggage in my haste, however the bag doesn´t come around.  I finally see mybag on a talbe next to a customes official.  He asks me to open it up and I do so.  That is when I see the 2 in1, shampoo/conditionerblood bath.  And I laugh.  I don´t care.  Sure the underwear around the bottle now looks like whoever wears them has a terrible yet hilarious disease, but the the gifts are fine, and that´s all I care about.
My suitcase is now clean and I have given all my gifts to my host family,there was no significant damage besides washing suds off a frisbee.  My host mother threw out the shampoo and told me I could use theirs.  My first meal was at Mcdonalds, at which point my stomach again became angry with me, but we had to eat there because we were in a hurry for some reason, I still don´t know why.  The meals I have had since then have been fantastic and the view from the balcony looks out on the sea.  My fmaily is amazing, as all those that agree to host exchangee students are, but mine seems even better, which is great because this is the only one I´ll have for the next year (Not standard rotary practice, usually threee families are used).  I can look out at a beach from several windows while listening to Spongebob (Bob Esponja) in my new home, and I couldn´t care less that my hair doesn´t smell like head and shoulders.