I had almost never been abroad (Russia and Belarus don't count).

When the day X came I had a wide range of feelings ranging from excitement to some kind of panic attack, since I had never traveled so far on my own, not to mention crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

After a long nine months of waiting, I had finally gotten my work contract and was invited to the US.

I knew it was going to be the greatest adventure of my life. Are you kidding me? A guy from a post-Soviet state who only knew a few words in English just two years ago! I guess my dreams were coming true 😉.

After getting my working visa and plane tickets ✈️, I was absolutely sure it's happening!

It was not going to be an easy trip though: one bus and three flights but I was down for it. First of all,  I needed to make it to the capital. It took me eight long hours on a bus. By the time I arrived at the airport, I was quite exhausted and had a feeling that my butt had taken the shape of a square ( the bus seats aren't really comfy in my country 😢). After checking in for the flight and going through the security checkpoint, I got to the waiting lounge. Everybody looked so elegant and sophisticated ( I could tell those people flew a lot and probably lived somewhere in  Europe) except for me, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but I didn't give a damn because I was going to the U.S.A !! Yeah baby!

I got lucky and got a window seat on the plane. That feeling when the plane is speeding up and taking off. Wow! It made my heart race! For a second, I felt like a bird 🐦.

There was nothing special about that flight except the fact that the flight attendants were so hot. And there were from my country, so I didn't have to speak English to them which, made it way easier to communicate with them.

A challenge arose when I arrived in Frankfurt. I only had 90 minutes for my transfer and I needed to figure out where to go and if I needed claim my luggage. Nervous and stuttering, I somehow managed to get directions from Indian assistant. I was quite surprised to see an Indian speaking fluent German, to tell you the truth 🙂.

Somehow I managed to get to another checkpoint, and when I got there, I saw that there were already (it felt like) at least a thousand of people there. My panic started building up. Finally, I was done with it (there was some misunderstanding involved, since I didn't quite understand what they wanted from me) and here I was in one of the biggest airports in the world waiting for my Boeing 747 to take me across the Atlantic Ocean to the country I only knew about from movies.

The crowd was quite different from the crowd at my domestic airport. Lots of heavy people and everybody seemed to be speaking a different language. I caught myself feeling that I kind of liked them more and I realized why. They smiled more and were dressed in regular, comfortable clothes. They seemed to be friendlier and more open-minded. The struggle started when I got on the plane and got a seat next to an overweight woman. Her body was literally taking up both our seats 💺. I tried not to move much and soon fell asleep and almost missed lunch. I had never eaten such small portions in such a limited space and having an king-size neighbor didn't help either. As a result, I dropped half of my food on my jeans.

The food was decent and weird at the same time. What I remember I got half a grapefruit, I guess it was either my salad or dessert 🤷🏻‍♂️.

It was an nine-hour flight and I managed to watch four or five movies ( I have a confession to make: I'm a movie-buff ). Eventually the plane started to land which made my excitement level go through the roof.

Before (or after ?) going through an immigration office, I was taken to a different room by two chubby African-American officers. They tried to communicate with me, but I was so bone-tired that I couldn't even put two words together.  When a third officer asked them what language I speak, one of them answered that I speak a bit of broken English. I think I'll remember that phrase till the day I die. After almost two years of intense study, my level of English was called "broken" 😢.  I got kind of upset, but hey, I somehow managed to explain myself. After two hours of waiting and speaking with another officer who introduced himself as a Russian interpreter but only knew a couple of phrases, they let me go. His accent was so thick that I could barely  understand him. I went to the baggage claim area where I found out that under no circumstances can you bring any food from you country (my girlfriend put some bananas and a couple of sandwiches in my suitcase 🙈) They made me open my luggage and get everything out, pointing and asking about my stuff. I was absolutely overwhelmed and exhausted. I guess at that moment I could only understand 10% of what people were saying to me, considering the fact they were speaking slowly.

I took another flight and ended up in Baltimore...

to be continued...