First Week in the US
I still clearly remember my very first week in the US. Oh, what a mixed feeling I had on my first journey to the US. I was excited, thrilled, nervous, scared, and happy all at the same time. At that point of my life, it was my biggest dreams come true! I cannot believe it’s been 6 years since that day.
My very first impression of this great country was “My Gosh, it’s so quite! Where is everyone?” Being a girl born and brought up in the capital city of Nepal, I was used to crowds all year around. In a matter of less than two days, I was almost on the other side of the world from my home and nothing looked close to being familiar. This question was coming repeatedly in my mind, “why is it so quite?” Soon after, I figured out that residential areas and commercial areas are distinctly separated here. This means, the nearest grocery store could be a mile or two away from where you live. In addition to that, public transportation system was very poor in that city, it was almost non-existential. Everyone got in the car and drove to any place that they needed to go and no one walked to anywhere. This added to the quietness.
While in Nepal, I had this image of the US in my mind of what American looks like, a mental picture. I thought American would look like those scenes from the movies, big shopping malls and sky-scrapers everywhere. Well, that is definitely not the case. With the access to the google map, it would be a good idea to checkout what your university and surrounding areas looks like before you get here. Or it might have to be a little disappointed like I was back than.
Everything, yes everything, was new. New University, new friends, new professors, new neighborhoods, new cultures, new food, new home and the list continues, as you can imagine! Luckily, my relatives lived in the same city so I got to see them once in a while, get to eat home-made Nepali food and talk in Nepali.
In my very first week here in this country, I also met a girl, who is now one of my very good friends. She was volunteering to help with international student orientation. We just clicked right away and have been good friends since then. She helped me a lot in those first few months in this country. Yes, yes indeed, there are good, nice-hearted and friendly people everywhere!
One of those things that completely amazed me in those first weeks is: amazing road-way system that the US has. The US government has definitely spent quite a bit of money on the freeways. You will have to see it to believe it.
While dealing with all these, I had to adapt to totally different education system of the US universities. Looking back after all these years, I can say that I did exceptionally well to adapt to all those things in such a short period of time.
Enjoy!
Smita
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