DEPARTED FROM
Bangkok, Thailand
ARRIVED IN
Washington, District of Columbia
YEAR
2000
AGE
11
TRANSCRIPT
My family moved here on August 4th of 2000. We are a tight nucleus of myself, my older brother, Josh, and my two parents. And when we moved here I was 11, my brother was 13 and we moved here between the school year. We had just finished... I had just finished my 5th grade year at the International School of Bangkok and my brother had just finished the beginning of middle school at the same school. So we were in summer vacation mode, just reading and hanging out. And then we got to the U.S. I think my brother and I had been to the U.S. on previous occasions when I was 2, when I was 7 and went to Disney Land or something. But, this time was definitely different. This time was... we're coming here and I don't know how long we're going to be here. I think my parents... at least that's how I was feeling. I kind of had the feeling that we were a group of nomads. After they got married my parents had moved to Cambodia, lived there for 10 years, then moved to Thailand, lived there 2 and a half years, now we were moving to the U.S. so, I think in my head I felt like were nomads and I didn't know how long we were going to be in the U.S. But I think my parents really were moving here so that my brother and I could get into the school systems in the U.S. and then go to college here.
I remember we first got to Dulles Airport and we took a cab and we checked into this little bed and breakfast in Georgetown. And my brother in the cab on the way there was just saying, "Woah, this is really fancy," and my parents were like, "What? What are you talking about?" And I... I remember just being really tired and going to bed. And the next morning waking up and being very hungry. There was a continental breakfast and I went down and there were donuts. There was a Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand so I was used to that, but I had never seen a bagel before and so I was really curious. I just saw this dense thing of bread with this hole in the middle, but it wasn't a donut, and you're supposed to put this thick cream on it. I didn't understand. So, anyway, I tried it and it was delicious! And I was pretty sold on that.
I think the rest of the day we were pretty on it. We just started looking for houses in either Maryland or Virginia. My dad rented a car and we went into Silver Spring, Maryland. It was the first suburb I had ever been in. We found this little house with a white picket fence... and I ate many bagels there throughout my time there.
