Where to even start... I've been here just over one month now. I think more has happened in the past month of my life than the previous 3 years. But first things first- the airport. It was the first time I had ever flown alone before, as well as my first time leaving the US. Definitely an intimidating experience, but I felt very prepared and confident in my ability to navigate the airports. To be honest, getting from Tampa Airport to Taoyuan International was pretty uneventful. Aside from me trying to keep myself awake the whole time to prevent jet lag (which did not work.) However, when I stepped off the plane in Taiwan, the confidence I had vanished pretty quickly. I knew exactly what I had to do, and it was easy to just follow everyone else getting off the plane. I had known I was going to come to Taiwan for around 8 months before that, and I had all the time in the world to prepare. But until I got off that plane, the entire exchange was just a concept. It only existed on paper and in me telling everyone that I was going to go. Walking from the plane into the airport through that weird metal tube was a surreal experience. What was unexpectedly striking as soon as I got off was the smell. The entire country smells different from home. The extreme cleanliness and thick silence of the long hallway to the center of the airport gave me some time to take a uneasy breaths. The only people who were on that side of the airport were those who had just flown in on my plane, but once I got to the center there were a lot more people. I got my suitcase, stood in line to have my passport and visa checked, and everything was fine. I was surprised to find that not only my host family, but many many Rotarians and their families were there to greet me when I came out of the airport. It was a bit of an awkward experience because I was very tired and too nervous to speak any of the few Chinese phrases I knew. And then, I was sat down and fed a feast of Taiwanese food, quickly enlightening me to a key aspect of Taiwan: that it is IMPOSSIBLE to starve in this country. Every time I come home from any event or meeting, I always have eaten a full meal and come home with a load of snacks. I have a mountain of random little snacks in my room... After eating only being able to eat a little bit of food (I had just eaten on the plane 2 hours earlier), I loaded into my Host Dad's car, and took my first ride on the Taiwanese highway.