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| Photo: Natália Lorandi |
How about a trip without happiness, worries and sadness? It would not be a good beginning if our first flight was not late. I say this because my friend Natalia, the one that took pictures, was with me. Our first flight from Porto Alegre to São Paulo was late almost two hours. We could do nothing, just wait.
Arriving in São Paulo, we had to wait about five hours to take the flight to Dallas, Texas in the United States. Our dream had already started. When I gave my ticket to enter in the plane, something started to whistle. It was me, or better, my ticket. I was guided to another place and a woman inspected me. Everything was all right and fortunately I am not a drugs trafficker.
No big problems so far.
We were sitting down in Dallas airport waiting for our next plane to Joplin since 6 a.m. It was time to go but we could not see other people waiting. We thought that the flight could be delayed, but we did not imagine that the gate could have changed. We missed it.
“The next one is at 7:30 pm”, the woman that was working in the ‘correct’ gate told us. Not having other options, we sat down and waited until 8 p.m., because the flight was full. We did not know the city, and there would be no available flights in two days and we started to cry.
The company woman offered us a plane to Arkansas and told us that we would take two or three hours by car to arrive in Joplin. To not forgive details, our baggage was already in Joplin airport.
There was a woman on the waitlist to Joplin too and we found her going to Arkansas. We asked her if she would like to rent a car and go with us. “My daughter is going to pick me up. I live in Joplin. Would you like a ride?” Of course we would.
Natalia and I went to Joplin with our new ‘friend’. She was about 45. Joplin Airport was closed because we arrived there at almost midnight. She offered her house, towels and a good bed to sleep in. She lived on a farm, there were cows, and everything there was beautiful. She and her daughter were like angels in our trip.
They really helped us.
In the morning, they took us to Joplin Airport to get our baggage and wait for someone from Pittsburg State University.
I left my house on Thursday, 11, at 7 a.m. and I arrived here, in my new home, on Saturday, 13, at 5 p.m. Can you believe it? I promise, it is true.
See more photos here.
See more photos here.
I always enjoy reading about others' experiences coming to America. Moving to the states when I was pretty young was a very exciting experience for me since I love traveling and seeing new things, but I can't imagine not being with your parents and going through that stress (especially at an airport) as an adult. I'm glad you found someone helpful to help you with a ride!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this post, first of all because I can relate to it completely, I'm an international students as well and when I first came here 3 years ago I went through a very similar situation, one of my flight from Buenos Aires got delayed which means that every other connection got changed as well, I had no idea how huge airports were here and how hard it is to actually find your gate and when I finally got to KC none of my luggage came so I also cried like you lol but there's always good people out there willing to help you out :) Estou aprendendo Portugues, você é de Porto Alegre menina? Eu amo essa cidade, eu estive lá um par de vezes
ReplyDeleteI'm from Caxias do Sul, but my boyfriend lives in Porto Alegre. So nice to know that there are more international students in our class. I think that I don't remember your face. You can talk to me and if you want I can help you with Portuguese. =)
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