My First Flight

I’m the baby of my family. Since I was young, I remember that everybody in my family always worried about me because I’m the one that looks very innocent to my family. I still lived with my family even though I graduated and earned money by myself. I was working in Thailand for one and a half years. I decided to quit my job and come to the USA for studying like two of my older sisters. I had never traveled by plane before, so it was the first flight of my life.

My parents, my uncle, my aunt, my cousin and my friends, everybody came to the airport to see me before I came to the USA. I remember that I was the last kid who leaving our family for the USA. At first my mother wanted me to wait until my sister graduated and came back home, but I asked her if I could leave because I really wanted to practice my English here. I couldn’t wait until they came back because it would take too long for that. I knew my mom would be lonely while I was not with her. That day, my mom was crying, I held her and told her that we would come back soon. I wasn’t crying until the plane took off. I saw the land that I had to leave grow smaller, smaller and then I started crying because I didn’t know when I would come back to my country and come back to see everybody whom I loved again.

I tried to stop crying because I know I’m not a baby who can cry wherever I want. I know that the person next to me knew that I was crying. He was an old man who looked very kind to me. I had nothing to do on my flight, so I thought he could be the first person who could help me practice my English. I started talking with him until my fight landed in Taipei. We wished each other a good journey. I checked my second plane ticket that I had to transfer to the USA. At first I thought I was in the same area, but I wondered why there were a lot of people getting in line to go somewhere else. I walked passed them to the terminal that I thought was the terminal of my next flight but I found that nobody was there. I was nervous because I felt that there might be something wrong. I walked back to the area that had a lot of people and showed my ticket. They told me that I have to go to the same line as the other people. After I came to the right terminal, I found that my flight was delayed so I had to spent two hours in the airport by myself. I was walking around and met that old guy again by accident. He told me that his flight was also delayed because it was raining that night.

On the flight from Taipei to San Francisco there were a lot of Chinese people and other nationalities. I tried to look for Thai people, but I couldn’t find anyone. All fight attendants were Chinese and they thought I was Chinese too and they talked to me in Chinese all the time. I saw flight attendants giving a paper to other passengers. One of the Chinese attendants gave me a form that was in Chinese so I could not understand it at all. After that the light was turn off and everybody was going to sleep while I was thinking how I could ask for a new form in English. I talked to one flight attendant, but it was hard to understand because I’m not used to her pronunciation. Finally, I got that paper and filled it in. I slept on the flight but not very well. I woke up again because the flight attendants were serving breakfast. I couldn’t eat much because I wasn’t hungry at all. I saw ocean and land under the plane all the way after that. I was so excited because I was going to arrive at my destination, the United States of America.

At San Francisco airport, my cousin came to pick me up. She said my sisters called her to check whether I had arrived in San Francisco yet. They were afraid that I would miss my flight in Taipei. My cousin called my mom in Thailand and my sisters in another state to let them know that I was safe. It made me feel that I can do anything like my sister’s do and I was ready to learn something new in my life.