| Flex Home
My Home Country Ukraine
My Exchange Experience
Mixed Pics
Mine Pics
Anna Pics
Tanya Pics
Friends Pictures
Three Friends' Pics
Guest Book
Contact Web-Master
Favorite Links
|
|
My Story
From the very beginning my interest in the exchange program was very big. In Ukraine you can try twice to get to USA. But I had to skip the first time because I was too young. But second time I decided to make it. I don't know why, but I was very sure in my abilities. Many people were pessimistic about me. They said there were too many people who wanted to go. But I was sure and level-by-level I passed everything. When a woman from the organization called me I was not even amazed too much. I feel that before. You know, and after that day the fun started. Now you know that you going go somewhere else see people, to make friends, try to understand another culture.
It was fun to stay in hotel for couple days in orientation. They gave us lots of information, but (don't want to disappoint the Organization) not everything was true. And they didn't tell us many important things. You are going notice that when you will come to US.
Examples:
1. There are different organizations in US and each has it's own rules. So whatever they told you in home country can be different.
2. It's OK to listen any music with most parents and Americans listen to Rap.
So, time passed really fast and in the 10th of August I had my plane. We had to come to Kyyiv the day before. But if you come with you parents you have to say good-bye the same day. We stayed there in hotel over night. And in the early morning we started our trip.
I was lucky to meet my friends there. The friends I knew from orientation. And not all of them were there. There are about 450 people that come to US from Ukraine. And they divided students in 5 groups (I think). Each group had it's own day of leaving Ukraine.
We left hotel at 5 in the morning and went to Boryspil airport. First we went to Frankfurt. It was cool there. The control was very strict there. They checked us like if we were a group of dangerous people. But it was OK. Than we switch plane and fly by Boeing 747 to New York. The flight time was 7 hours, so we had to be patient.
My group arrived NY at 5 o'clock (local time). Of course in my country it was completely different time. And we were tired of such long all day moving. But it was not the end. Some people had their next planes right couple minutes after. And please pay attention, after NY they became independent. I mean they were alone. So 4 more people and I were lucky because we stayed in hotel in NY over night. We could relax a little. Next morning I got up again at 5. Not too exciting but we had to go.
So they brought us to the terminal of the BIGGEST AIRPORT in the World the GFK. And later you can go wherever you want. We have different flight so we were brought to different ones. Again it was good for me not to be alone. There were a guy and a girl with me. We all had the same plane to Detroit. When we came to the ticket office to check our tickets we found out that we didn't have to put our luggage to the storage the day before. Yes, we were upset and not too happy because we were told to put the luggage. And now we were to find it. You know, all these nervous environment and bad English with strong accent made everything even more badly. But the workers found the bags of the people with me and only one of my bags (I had two). Not too excited we went to the next plane and successfully came to Detroit.
Again we were lucky to meet a stewardess from the plane to Detroit. She was interested in us foreign guys. So, she helped us to find the places how to get on other planes. But her help was especially valuable to me. That's because we went more than a mile inside the airport to my next point. Can you imagine a mile or even more than that like 2km. But they have such special elevators that are moving just forward, so you don't have to walk so much.
Thanks God and that woman, I got on the plane and came to Champaign, IL. My family was waiting there. After some hugging we went to check the luggage. Only one bag was there. So we filled out the document and airport workers promised to find it.
My host family and me went home. Tell the truth first half hour none of us could understand each other. But later everything became better.
PS. In the late evening they found my bag and delivered it to our house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
…I hag to get up at 4:40 at night! It was not too easy, but what could I do? I just did it. I had some little snack and my host parents took me to airport. I checked my luggage, said good bye to my parents and just went to the plane.
Couple days before:
I had lots of stuff to take home. All exchange students have such kind of problems. I was lucky to get a big bag as a present from my host parents. But still, I had way too much to pack everything very easily. So, it took my like 5 times to put all in bags. Finally, the day before flight I got it done.
My first plane was from Champaign to Chicago. It took just couple minutes to get there. O’Hara airport was nice and BIG and very busy. I had to get to my next plane there. It was somewhere in other part of airport, but it was not too hard to find it cause after year in US I was not too bad in English, had great experience with finding right stuff in airport and just much more sure in myself.
So, with next plane I got to Cincinnati. Nothing special happened while going there, just clouds and pain in ears because of changing pressure. In Cincinnati I met lots of exchange students from Ukraine and we flied to NY. I met even more Ukrainian students over there. There were lots of my friends. We started discussing our opinions about all things that have happened to us in US. Flight from NY to Frankfurt was promising to be a long one, especially if I say that we stayed for an hour in Kennedy airport because of some problems. So we had lot of time for speaking. I get to know new people while flying home. You know it took us 8 hours, so…
Flying was fun, but let me tell you something. I got up early and had been flying for the whole day. When we approached Europe sun appeared but I never slept. So, sometimes the day changed and I haven’t noticed exactly when. We passed many time zones while flying. When we came to Frankfurt I was very tired. All I wanted was to get home as soon as possible.
After some time we flied with our last plane to Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. One thing we didn’t know. That plane was planning to stop in one city just one hour from my town. When we came there lots of people said that they would like to go out there, but we all had to go to the capital, which is far-far away from my home. Those were the rules that didn’t allow us to leave.
In Kyiv my dad met me. We were very happy to see each other. I was telling him about my Great Experience. We went home by train and next day I got home. My mom and brother and my grand parents were waiting for me. It was a nice time.
|
|
|
|
|
