Week 1: We've arrived!

Written on the 21st of January.

After saying goodbye to my fiancé and family(which I found harder to do than expected, am I getting old?), it was time for me to start my big adventure to Albany, New York. Although, I do have to say that I had mixed feelings about leaving The Netherlands for four months. Yes, I am going on a big adventure, but leaving everyone behind and not being able to be there in a split second when something might happen, made me realize that I am actually going to the other side of the world. Fortunately, this feeling of ‘abandonment’ soon turned into excitement as I reached closer to the airport. I was finally going to America, you know, the one you see on television with the sky-high buildings and huge schools and busy streets with cultures and nationalities you couldn’t even count on one hand? Yes, that one.

We (Luuk, another student who is joining me) flew with Jet Airways from Brussels to Newark. The flight went pretty smoothly as we even landed half an hour earlier than scheduled. Good for us! Once we landed, we had to go through customs, and I’ll be real about this, it did cross my mind that they would single me out and asks questions because I am muslim. Luckily, this only happend on one occasion. Not because I am a Muslim, but because I was carrying food in my bag. After the whole waiting-in-line-catastrophe, we finally found ourselves, as exchange students, in America!

However, we were not done traveling yet! We were at Newark, but needed to be at the Cresthill hotel in Albany, New York. Side note: we weren’t allowed to enter our dorm rooms up until the 17th of January, therefore we had to stay in a hotel close to the university. Continuing, we went to New York Penn station and then with the AMTRAK to Albany Rensselaer. We had to pay 60 BUCKS! That’s what you get for not reserving on time and/or planning out the trip, welp, lesson learned. We were glad we were even on the right track, literally(pun). Having arrived at the hotel, being put in a unlivable room, and being upgraded to a room with three kingsize beds and two bathrooms as a consolidation, it was time to store some energy for the orientation day for the International students, like ourselves.

Orientation day! We had to be at the University Hall, but soon realized the University isn’t like as we know it in The Netherlands. It’s, in my opinion, HUMONGOUS. Where do we start? Like the adventurers we are, we just started walking towards the Collin’s Circle trying to find a clue where we could be. Yep, as you might have guessed, we found it. Clever us! After picking up all the documents, cards and whatnot, it was time for us to go to our dorm room. Trust me, after carrying around your suitcase for that long, you really want to throw it off a cliff. However, the calm and collected guy I am, I didn’t. We went to our dorm, Alumni quad(whoop whoop!) and registered at the quad office to receive our keys for our room.

Welp, for now this’ll do. I am now almost a week in the US, and have much more to tell you. However, as the honest guy I am, I am running out of energy to continue this blog with the same enthusiasm as I started it with. Therefore, I’ll continue my blogpost some other time.

I sincerely hope, that you’ll enjoy reading my blogs and even, if you feel like it, post a response. What do you want me to write about? Food? People? Leave a comment :-)!

By the way, I learned a new phrase I will definitely be using, lickety-split.

Have a good one,
Tunckan.