Traveling to Foreign Country - Essay Example

This has given me a different perspective on traveling to a new land. The anxiety that I felt upon moving to America mostly centered on my children. As an adult, I knew that small changes could be dealt with and that time tends to heal most wounds. But my anxiety for my children was immense. I did not want them to be at a disadvantage because they were new in this country. I wanted them to learn the language and social skills they would need to be successful. I needed to find work right away, so that meant finding a good day care for the children.

As I approached the first day care center that would grant me an interview, my heart was pounding with nervousness. I had faced much more stressful situations in my homeland, but so much was weighing on this decision. At least that is what I thought at the time. The large brick building was a Christian church that had a day care center on the bottom level. Entering the day care center door, I could smell the strong smells of plastic and disinfectant. Janice, the director greeted me warmly. She shook me by the hand and spoke very loudly and slowly.

Too loudly. I immediately felt dumb and wondered if I had made a good choice. As it turns out, Janice was a lovely person. She gave me a walking tour of the day care center, where children of all colors were engaged in play. Everything was neat, clean and child sized. The workers were playing with the children. Janice stopped talking so loudly when I made it clear through my speech that I was OK at understanding English. By the end of my visit, I no longer felt dumb. My children were enrolled in a day care center that was clean and affordable.

Janice became the first friend I made in America. My anxiety concerning my children slowly began to slip away. My next task was to purchase transportation for my family. This experience left me confused and not nearly as satisfied as the day care experience. Actually, in many ways the experiences started in a similar way. I entered a building full of conflicting smells. Walking into the dealership, I could smell an odd combination of roasting hotdogs, coffee, motor oil and the unmistakable smell of tires.

The food odors came from a lounge area inhabited by noisy children and bored parents waiting to have their cars serviced. The other, more expected smells were from the cars in the showroom. Lawrence, the salesman greeted me and began talking very fast. He wanted to know about my family, my job, my homeland and me. He thought it was wonderful that I had just moved to America, explaining his parents had moved from Belgium when he was a small child. Finally, he started to talk about cars. I told him the amount of money I could spend but he said that was not the most important consideration.

He explained that in America, cars were more than transportation. He said cars are a way of telling people about you. I honestly did not understand what he meant. He continued this way for some time, talking fast and showing me one bright, shiny car after another. I began to grow impatient. I had not come to look at cars I could not afford. I just needed to find a car that could get me to work and the kids to day care. Finally, I let Lawrence know that I was running out of time and I needed to see some cars I could afford.

He began to talk about how easy the financing was and how low my payments could be each month. Every figure he suggested was more than I could afford. Lawrence grew persistent when I gathered my