I sat for a long time in front of a blank sheet of electronic paper and didn’t know where to begin my story about the American summer.

You have to start from something, I thought, and began to recall the brightest moments of the overseas period of my life. And then it began! A nonstop ringing of voices, the rapidly rewinding picture outside the window and a completely wild, colossal wave of jokes and laughter. "It's like a typical Voronezh barbershop," I remembered my own phrase, uttered somewhere in July or August. Everyone laughed at that. Because everything that happened to us in

America was infinitely far from Voronezh, and even further from anything typical or familiar.

I don't know why I decided to make this trip so late. I only thought about taking part in Work and travel in my sixth year of study, even though, starting from my first year, someone I knew went to the States on exchange every year. Probably, like many, I didn't want to deal with the difficulties that accompany such serious decisions, thought narrowly and provincially, and was afraid to imagine a completely unknown life into which I would have to plunge for a third of a year. Only very active and persistent friends, who can fill anyone's head with their ideas, persuaded me to go with them. They were preparing to take part in the program for the second time, knew how everything worked, and so blindly following them didn't seem such a bad idea. In general, I began to brush up my English, save money, persuade my parents, plan all the necessary arrangements. I remember everything was like a fog: some interview, some payments, some documents and dates. With each successfully completed step I got closer to America:

my friends envied me more and more, and I believed in the reality of what was happening less and less.

I don't know how I passed the interview. Many acquaintances who wanted to go to America were refused, but somehow I got through that sieve. My friends who convinced me to go and accompanied me at every stage of getting involved in the program also couldn't get a visa. Battle-hardened "J-1" veterans couldn't take the height, while I, a debutant, easily covered the distance. After that I had to somehow deal with everything myself, and so I never felt completely at ease.

Doubts tormented me until the last moment. I walked firmly toward the set goal of getting to the USA, but

I myself didn't fully believe I really wanted it. And already at the airport, right before the flight, an episode happened that cut off a new stage of my life, helped me understand my real attitude toward what was happening. Right before the check-in desk I reached into a folder lying in my backpack to pull out my passport. And it wasn't there.

Cold sweat, nausea, dizziness, panic: you could check off the most serious symptoms. Not a single neuron in my head admitted the possibility that not flying out right now – that would be good. No, every cell of my body started to pull toward the departure hall, but the passport still couldn't be found. I was filled with a terrible burning envy of those who stood with their passports in their hands.

I did find the document after all: the bottom of the folder had torn, and some documents fell into the depths of the backpack. Incomparable joy and serenity were the reward for the recent panic attack. Boarding the plane went smoothly, and now I knew for sure: I was flying to my dream.

The USA is a leader of the world economy, American culture is in one way or another integrated into all countries of the world. So it is unsurprising that I expected a certain American superiority in all spheres of life. But upon arrival, first disappointments came: a huge line at the airport with non-functioning Wi-Fi, a completely incomprehensible aeroexpress to the city for newcomers, and an absolutely nightmarish New York subway, dirty and inconvenient. Ironically, the most negative impressions of the country fell on me exactly during the first hours of my stay there. After that things only got better.

The story of what happened next would probably fill a very thick book. It's very funny now to recall all the fears that haunted us at first: we won't find housing, we won't learn to understand Americans, we'll be left without work, we won't be able to find a common language with neighbors. To somehow figure out the unfamiliar conditions, we, a small group of arrivals together, started a small VK conference: there were about 7 of us. By the end everyone had to turn off notifications about new messages, because more than 50 participants had gathered in the chat, and messages came literally every minute.

And now imagine: more than 50 people, each of whom is a vivid personality who wants to communicate and have fun. I had never encountered such a flow of voices, emotions, jokes, interesting stories and ideas in my life! Russians, Ukrainians,

Kazakhs, Belarusians: we were drawn to each other like magnets, discussed everything under the sun, entertained ourselves as best we could, and periodically switched our conversations with each other to English so as not to forget it completely while living in America!

Writing this text is too difficult because my head fills to the brim with images and memories soaked in a horse dose of smiles, but to formulate it into neat words seems a very difficult task. In short, here are a few theses (sorry, reader) about what "a summer in America" is:

• when not knowing English, but communicating in it is a normal thing;

• when an entire restaurant is upended, trying to find hot tea for a couple of Englishmen, because in all the years no one has ever ordered such a thing;

• when

Americans ask you to explain what "sguschyonka" is and ask you to send at least one can from Russia;

• when you can only eat soup at Subway, but only if you're very lucky;

• when 4 hours of sleep is quite enough;

• when you constantly complain about the job and the city, plan to leave, but, imagining that you really have to leave everyone, you start to cry and stay;

• when your alarm wakes up everyone in the room, motel, the whole town, but not you;

• when your pets are the bear Ibrahim and the cockroach Zhenya;

• when a Filipino speaks Russian better than you speak English;

• when everything is slow, but Ramil is busy;

• when after one a.m. it's pool time;

• when you hate pizza, but try to eat as much as possible;

• when you warm up in the morning with mediocre jokes so that you can joke like God in the evening;

• when an 80-year-old granny who ordered alcohol is surprised why you didn't check
  her ID;

• when your pets are the bear Ibrahim and the cockroach Zhenya;

• when you are in a chat where no one ever answers questions, except "who is at Mellow now?";

• when Andrey shaved off his mustache, and Serezha shaved his son's eyebrows;

• when in one motel you sleep, in the second you wash your things, and in the third you bathe;

• when in your music top there turns out to be what a sane person with
  musical taste wouldn't listen to even for money;

• when you delete Instagram to free up space and take a few photos
  that you can later post on Instagram;

Times Square dazzling at any hour;

Gatlinburg throwing you into the embrace of numerous friends; Miami carrying you to the pinnacle of bliss; Las Vegas making you not want to go outside; Los Angeles frightening with its speed, where a cyclist even overtakes your car at 80 miles per hour; Chicago filling the soul with art and serenity... America turned out to be so varied, so unpredictable. It taught me to appreciate the diversity around me, to find common ground with representatives of dozens of nations; to work hard, but live beautifully and interestingly; not to believe stereotypes, but to check everything myself. Not a single day now passes without a couple or three memories from that time. Some friends even began to joke that if I were forbidden to say the word "America",

I would be silent all the time. But yes, it was that kind of time! It was four months that contained so much, so intense that a whole lifetime afterward would not be enough to tell everything and express it all in words.

Little white figures on traffic lights;

strangers asking how you're doing and wishing you a good day;

cheap stores with branded clothing; conveyor belts of donuts at Krispy Kreme; two kinds of meat and one side on a plate at the Panda chain;

boundless hypermarkets Wallmart, which you can reach only with two transfers; a McDonald's cup that you can take into Subway and fill with soda; a million kinds of peanut butter: these are all the things I miss madly. This is what made my summer. My best summer!