From East to West.

Once I decided to attend a conference on student recruitment for the Work and Travel program, I realized that very same day that this trip would radically change my life and me as well. You know, that is exactly how it turned out!

For the first time in my life, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean. And I remember the turbulence zone near Greenland... Oooooh, how I sweated during those minutes)

Twice I was left alone on the platform and thought: "Should I just leave and go wherever my eyes take me?!" And at that moment, for some reason, I kept remembering the words of my father, who said that if I stayed, he would come for me and take me back anyway... Hmm, I guess that's why I didn't stay after all)

Three times I visited New York, and, yeeees, this city never left me indifferent!

Four times I flew on a plane, and twice I crossed the states from East to West and back.

Five times I almost played roulette in Las Vegas with my last money)

Six times I swam in the ocean all summer, am I an idiot for doing it so little?

Seven times I fell off my bike until I learned to ride without hands.

Eight times throughout the summer I returned home from a party in the morning, but upon waking up, I didn't remember how.

Nine. That's how many miles I walked on deserted roads with the help of GPS. Ask why? I was looking for the port where the ferry to New Jersey departs.

And finally, I visited ten states all summer, and honestly, for a person who was in the USA for the first time, I consider it a success.

I'll start, perhaps, with how I arrived in New York after a 16-hour flight from Astana via Moscow. It is impossible to describe in a couple of sentences the feeling when I walked down the ramp, meeting people with signs, just like in the movies. I was so overwhelmed with emotions that I completely forgot my English...

After fifteen minutes of being in my best emotions, I even forgot that I hadn't slept for almost 26 hours since the moment I got into the car and went with my parents from my native Ekibastuz to Astana, full of hopes and plans, especially the anticipation of seeing what I could only dream of a year ago while sitting at another conference meeting about participating in the program. Continuing to look at the signs with names, I realized that I didn't see my name, just as I didn't see the name of the organization that was supposed to meet me and take me to the city where I would have to start working: Ocean City, Maryland.

And here I slowly begin to return to reality and realize that it is already 3:30 PM, and I have to be at work tomorrow at 12:00 sharp! And it takes at least 7 hours by bus. And that's when panic started to set in! Along with this, I tried to remember reasonable English sentences to explain at the information desk that I needed a phone for an urgent call, to which a pleasant woman in a blue-and-white suit replied to me more than once with such a French accent: "Do you happen to speak French, guy?"

Realizing that I definitely wouldn't get to Ocean City like this, I started asking people who were sitting and possibly waiting for their flight. I was actually very amazed by the kindness of Americans; every person I asked something helped me one way or another. After numerous calls from various numbers to the organization that was supposed to meet me, I finally found a way out. To be specific, they redirected me to another terminal, to other people who also arrived from different countries like me, waiting for instructions and a minibus. After a half-hour wait with my new "waiting friends," a man named Damian arrived. I even thought: "A strange name for an American." And he turned out to be Romanian. He directed us to a minibus, and my new friends from Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and, I think, Serbia, with whom we exchanged a couple of sentences, were already sitting and falling asleep in the minibus in anticipation that we would soon be there, in a new home, and with new people...

After waking up 7 hours later, I realized that we had arrived at the destination, but Damian explained that only I was getting off here, as he had no idea where the address was that I had repeated to him several times before leaving JFK airport. In front of us stood a minivan, where Damian directed me and said that they would help me, that these were his acquaintances who knew the city like the back of their hand. Tired and not understanding what was happening, I took my huge suitcase from the trunk, put it in the minivan's trunk, and sat inside.

"Hi, my name is Zara," said a woman in broken English who was sitting in the front seat. And then, I don't know why, but I realized that she was speaking Russian, probably. Having asked her in Russian: "Do you happen to speak Russian?", she replied in pure Russian: "Yes, of course." It was a Georgian family working for this organization. They help with housing for arriving students every summer. Thus, a conversation started. A couple of minutes later, the driver sat in the car, also her husband Georg, as he introduced himself. In fact, it was Georgy. The thing is, Americans like to shorten names, for example, Jessica-Jess, Kimberly-Kim, and my employers called me strongman. Doesn't it sound like a superhero?! So I kept my nickname as a short name for them))

We drove for another 20 minutes to Ocean City, and then it dawned on me that in the conversation they mentioned the city of Rehoboth Beach, actually, that's where we were coming from. "So it turns out I was transferred from one car to another, and in a different city?" I thought, and started dreaming about when this day would finally end...

Before entering the city, they told me about the summer season, the peculiarities of the city, until we heard the sound of a police car siren. I turned around and for me it was something like a movie, when cops stop people when there is something illegal in the car! But to my luck and overly vivid imagination, after 10 minutes of talking about the presence of certain documents related to the car, Officer Johnson let us go with a wish for a good trip and "check your front left headlight again." We continued the trip and started looking for the address I had dictated to them. We wandered for a long time, actually. And now I'm going up to the second floor. As written on my piece of paper, I stand in front of the door and just rejoice that I finally reached the place and won't be late for work tomorrow. I remember it like it was now: before knocking on the door, I looked at the clock to understand how late I was calling and how my roommates would perceive me. 23:32... I didn't even pay attention, but while I was standing, the door started to open by itself and a tall man appeared in the doorway, an American by appearance, as it seemed to me, with a white beard, age from 45 to 55, and stared at me. "Seeeergeeeeyyy?" he asked in the doorway with such a typical English accent, firmly not pronouncing the "r". His name was Steve, and he is my landlord. Sitting comfortably on the sofa, I began to tell what adventures I had in the last 48 hours. During my story, he poured me tea three times and added: "I know that you in Kazakhstan love to drink tea." Frankly speaking, I was pleasantly surprised and confirmed it with an enthusiastic nod.

Over the next week, I struggled to master the understanding of fast American slang and gained more experience in communication than in the last couple of years of attending English classes. But I gained the most experience in New York...