DEPARTED FROM
Warsaw, Poland
ARRIVED IN
Chicago, Illinois
YEAR
2001
AGE
20
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, my name is Ferdous Al-Faruque – I go by Danny. So, here’s my story, first day in the US.
The first day I got here, I came from Warsaw, Poland, to Chicago. I went to school at IIT [the Illinois Institute of Technology] there. The first day after I landed, I took a shuttle bus from the airport, O’Hare, to IIT campus. And on the shuttle bus, I met a really friendly bus driver, we had a nice chat – unfortunately, after I got off the bus, I realized I had left a bunch of my luggage on the bus. So, I grabbed a cab and ran after – or, drove after – the bus, but unfortunately the bus was gone. I then called the company and tried to explain to them that several of my items were on that shuttle bus, and I would appreciate if they could get that stuff back to me. Unfortunately, the shuttle bus company said that all those items were gone, they couldn’t find it, so it was a pretty miserable experience there to start off with. And in the items that were lost, I had gifts from my friends in Poland, from my family, a bunch of books that I had planned to read, but maybe logistically more importantly I had my winter shoes and my nice dress shoes in there as well. When winter came around, I couldn’t afford to buy a new pair of winter shoes and so I used the sneakers, which I fortunately had on me at the time, and wore that for a good portion of that winter, until finally I realized that getting my feet soaked every day in Chicago winter weather was not a good idea if I didn’t want to catch a cold or maybe even a frostbite. So, I went out and doled out the extra money to buy some winter shoes.
So, that’s my experience in the US, but things have gotten a lot better since then, so I hope that somehow this is entertaining to somebody. Thanks!
