Minneapolis to Karachi Part 1.

Finally, I am writing something about my travel from the snow bed of Minneapolis to the scorching heat of Karachi. A lot of my folks asked me if I cried while leaving Minneapolis and the answer is, yes. I did. Everyone was shocked because it was least expected of me. Anne lost the bet. While I was getting my tickets, something hit me badly…For a second I stood there looking out of the glass windows, completely ignoring the lady at the counter, who was now checking in my bags. It was in the millionth part of the second that a few tears rolled down my cheeks and quietly disappeared in my long hair. I tried hard to stop more tears from coming but it was such an emotional moment; I was leaving the most amazing people and the beautiful memories forever. I was leaving that gorgeous city. The hug of Anne broke the barrier, that had been stopping the flow of tears. I started crying without making any noise. My face and eyes turned red. The lady at the counter was baffled and said, “Hey, smile! You could always come visit and you look cute when crying” Everyone had laughed at her last sentence. Kysa was busy taking the pictures when I was crying…aur sonay pe suhaga she uploaded them on facebook the following night and tagged me. Had nahi hai? Anyways, I said goodbye to all the people, I love deeply and went for the security. I remember the last sight of my host family and friends; they were standing in a horizontal line and everyone was crying. They were waving at me and my lips were shivering…I don’t exactly remember when and how the line moved and they disappeared…

When I was done boarding, I sat beside my gate and shed more tears while reading the letters everyone had given me at the last moment. They were beautifully written and were stowed with pure affection. It was when I saw two other exchange friends from Pakistan coming to me. Amna had hugged me quickly; I could see the surprise in her eyes. Nobody was expecting tears of me. Zuhair had helped us carry the bags and after almost 30 minutes we were on the plane. All three of us switched seats and managed to sit together. I was in the middle of the two and the center of attention. They tried to talk about things other than leaving host families. I stayed quiet throughout. We landed in Chicago; it was our first and last transit. On the next flight, we couldn’t sit together. My seat was between an old guy and a college guy, who read his book most of the time and also yawned a few times [I absolutely hated that yawning part]. I wasn’t liking it at all but then this extremely cute kid, who was in the front seat turned around and smirked at me. Evidently, he was flirting and his mom actually said it out loud. Lol. For the rest of the flight, I talked to him and played with his little bunny. I don’t know when we landed at the Dulles International Airport. It was huge, neat and busy.

After getting our luggage we went to the baggage claim #10 to see the representative from the program. There we met more Pakistanis and even exchange students from other countries. The Arabians were doing their belly dance at the Airport. They would scream like anything whenever one of their friends entered the baggage claim area. I and Zuhair looked at each other with weird expressions on our faces. Apparently, we were embarrassed of how they greeted each other.

Our shuttle # was 5. We got on the shuttle and reached the Trinity university in about 45 minutes. During the drive, I stayed quiet and observed the never ending trees on our both sides. The skies were clear and people were speaking nonstop in the bus. They had met each other after a year. All this excitement and loudness was inevitable but it hadn’t pinned me down yet.