Flight to New York

Having to wake up early is not really my specialty. Unless I am going to do something fun, for example: going to New York!

Freaking 4.30 AM and ‘I Want’ by One Direction was blasting into my ears. I don’t think I have ever gotten up that quickly. Within 10 minutes I was showered and dressed, ready to pack the last minute things. Of course I was not quite done with the packing and I ended up throwing in even more and that made us late… After grabbing a quick breakfast for on the go, we were ready to leave.

When we (as in me and my family) arrived at Schiphol airport most of the people were already there. It was a bit strange as I didn’t know any of them but they most likely had already seen each other once before at a meeting, which I couldn’t attend. The staff of Travel Active was there as well to help us with checking in and do other bits of assistance. Susanne and Noor were coming with us to Newark as that is where we landed.

After checking in it was time to go for coffee with our families and have just thirty minutes of spending time together. Me and my family went down to a little café and talked me leaving. After a while it was time to say our goodbyes and my little sister (8) started crying. I just kept saying how I would be back in just a little while, knowing that I would be way from her for ten whole months. To be fair I don’t think it will be hard to be away from my parents and brother (15). Of course I’ll miss them but I know they won’t have changed much when I come back and I can always just call them at all times. My sister on the other hand is my best friend and she will change so much although I know exactly how she will turn out, just like me.

When everyone was ready to go through the gates, we took a group photo and we were off. We got to our gate early and just took a seat. Then we had to go through the security and get everything checked. Once that was done we took a seat again and I was with Menno, Tobias, Marc (‘The Three Guys’) and Yentel who actually ended up being my roommate. We talked about where everybody was going, how the contact had been with the host families, whether they had been in the US before and so on.

At that time the plane was ready and we could all go on board and get comfortable in our seats. I was sitting next to a strange man who kept talking to his family who were sitting to the other side of me. Louise was on the other side in another isle so we talked a bit back and forth during the flight. I was writing blogs for most part of the flight did a bit of reading and I wanted to go to sleep as well but somehow I couldn’t so I ended up writing more.

Eight long hours later we landed safely on New Jersey ground and went to customs. It was not too busy and I was at the counter pretty quickly. A man called Santana took my photo and fingerprints, checked my passport and when he saw my student visa he asked me what I was planning to do. So I explained and he said that when I was going to prom in Missouri that I should ‘do it big’. It was nice to be welcomed into the USA this way instead of having grumpy people walking around and screaming at you.

After baggage claim, it was time to get some lunch that was followed by going to the Double Tree by Hilton hotel in Newark by bus. Thank goodness for the air-conditioning in there!

We had to wait for 75 minutes when we got there as not all of the rooms were ready yet. Everybody was tired and just wanted to lay down, get some proper rest. I ended up sharing a room with Pauline and Yentel and we had a connecting door to the room of Jorien en Tulge so that door was open all the time. It was like a big girls room. After getting a much-needed shower we headed to dinner (tasteless pizza but we ate it anyways as we were hungry). It was so much fun eating all together. We laughed a lot and we all got a long. It is so nice to have people surrounding you who want the same thing and you really share this experience with them. I think and really hope everyone felt the same way.

We went to bed early, two long days of New York City was ahead of us. Of course there will be blogs about that too!

Much love,

Naomi