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The year 2018 was certainly a year full of great changes, only after I met my great love, which I knew was 'the one’, and then a few months later I received a letter that I had been accepted to Shanghai International Studies University and was getting ready to go to their one-year language exchange. China, such a strange country, I know the language, I study it, that is the purpose of my trip, but to go to such a country alone, so far, how will my love endure? I didn't even want to hear the part about parting at the airport, I will cry my tears alone, in a place where no one sees. I arrived in Shanghai in early September, just at the time when the humidity was the worst, I forgot what my hair looked like when it was unrecognizably curly. For the first months, everything was still new, you can't imagine how difficult it would be to be in another time zone - sleep when all my friends were talking evening gossip, waking up when my big love eyelids were getting heavy. What was actually the worst about the whole experience was the girl I was with sharing the room, which for a whole year did not feel the need to communicate with me, so in that old and dark room I felt as if I was in solitary confinement. China is a marvelous world, this hectic on the streets, that population, that delight in white complexion and blond hair - completely out of the ordinary. I felt like a celebrity for a year, and I can tell you that I would never choose the lives of famous people. Food was one of the things I had a major problem with, I am not a big fan of meat, and I have been super tidy and clean since young age, and when I saw how things are done there, how casually they make your food, without even washing the hands, just chatting with the customer - I had a special diet, and I came back even thinner than before, which honestly suited me well. Although I expected the official departure home as the most beautiful gift that was given to me, as I returned home when landing at the humble airport of my city, I felt like a completely different person, and that is what still follows me today. That life school I got there, that single life at 22, that breakthrough without help made me a more mature person than most of my peers. A year later, since my return, I still dream of a street full of colorful commercials and Chinese decorations, I still dream of the gregariousness of a young Chinese who would ask me to tutor him English, I still dream of retirees dancing on a sunny Sunday in a park together, I still catch myself daily dreaming of my China.