The flight itself was smooth but scary. I opted not to think too much about the condition of out airplane as I though that it might fall apart. Clearly, it best days were long gone.

After about 9 hours we arrived at JFK in New York City, New York. We boarded a bus that took us to Stanford for a three-day long orientation. I remember how much I was in shock when I saw a bus turning on red light at the airport (little I knew about the traffic law). This whole world was so new and strange to me but I loved every minute of it! JFK itself was about the size of my hometown and the drivers were as fast as in the movies.

In America everything is bigger and better, especially cars. Cars tell about the country economic wealth. Little I know that majority of these cars were owned by bank.

During the drive to Stanford I could not get enough of what I was seeing. My nose was literally glued to the bus window; I was carefully watching passing us cars, looking at the drivers and wondering what was going my neighborhood look like (I was imaging a newspaper boy delivering morning paper with a smile on his face, and friendly neighbors.) I have never seen so many people of color in one place. Even the traffic jam did not bother me a bit; I actually enjoyed it because it gave me some extra time to think what I want to do during this upcoming year, what do I want to bring back home, and how to use this precious time that I was given. After all we were stuck in the famous American traffic on a famous NY highway!

Questions, questions, more questions and no answers. Some things I really wanted to accomplish were learning English, making few international friends (the more diverse, the better), going to the Disneyland and meeting a cowboy (yes, really).