Embarkation

Embarkation

Uber Airporter wasn't going to be at our doorstep for another ten long, boring minutes. My mom and dad had me outside of the house and at the curb waiting, because they were being overly cautious. Everyone knew that if you got on the app, you could see moment by moment real-time location updates on your Uber driver. I'd told them so. It hadn't been enough though. The Uber driver would come to your door too. Everybody knew that, too. My parents wouldn't listen to me though.

There was no place to sit on the sidewalk in front of our house, and standing made me feel silly. It's not what the sidewalks were there for. The reason that the sidewalks had been put in was not for standing on.

Our house had been built over a hundred and thirty years ago. My parents had found old black-and-white photographs of our neighborhood in the attic one summer, and there were no sidewalks in the photos. It was hard for me to imagine my neighborhood without sidewalks.

I'd grown up with sidewalks. I walked on them. I'd walked to the school bus stop. I'd walked to the library. I'd walked to the rec center. I'd walked all over my neighborhood. That's what the sidewalks were there for, wasn't it? Walking.

My parents had me standing there, early in the morning, waiting for an Uber. How ridiculous. How out of place I must have looked standing straight as pole next to the three-piece luggage set I'd chosen from the web and had had my parents purchase for me.

The luggage had been bought well in advance too. It had sat in my bedroom closet for nearly three months. Other necessities too. Underwear was another example. I had had new underwear, still in its package, stuffed into one of the bags of the luggage's set. It had been waiting there for nearly as long as the luggage.

As my departure date kept coming closer, other items, which had been deemed as necessities by my parents, had been added to the contents of my luggage set. I had picked out a few shirts and pants, but that was all. My parents had done the rest.

It was so cool. It was so much bigger than any Christmas had ever been. I was going to travel and see the world. It was the kind of thing that I had only ever dreamt of.

My shirt was brand new and had never been worn. My pants were one of my favorite pairs of blue jeans. On my back, was a brand-new back-pack, similar to the one my dad used when we went hiking together. Inside the back-pack was some fruit, in case I got hungry; a jacket, in case I was cold; my Kindle reader, so I wouldn't get board; headphones, so I could listen to music; and my Apple tablet with its keyboard, so I could stay connected. My smartphone was in my jean's pocket.

The Uber driver was searching the street for house numbers, and double checking the directions on his phone when I saw him coming.

He had an accent. Go figure.

Our city was a melting pot. We had people from all over the world. My mom had once said that she'd gone through a whole day of running errands without running into one person who didn't have an accent. I was used to it. It was that way in school too. "Had been" that way in school, I should say. That's why they called it a melting pot.

My guess was India. You would think that, having grown up in a melting pot, I wouldn't have to guess, but I couldn't tell for sure.

He had said, "Hello, are these your bags?", and said it clearly and flawlessly, but not how I or anyone who had had English as their first language would have. His consonants were too perfect and his vowels too relaxed.

I said, "Yeah," and lifted the biggest one up and off the ground.

He opened the trunk and took the bag from me. When we had finished loading my luggage, he let me choose between the front passenger seat, or a seat in the back. I took the front, and plopped my back-pack on my lap as soon as I'd sat into the seat.

Then we were off to the airport. The driver came to the end of my street, and steered the car around the corner, onto 12th Street.

My hands went to the zipper on my back-pack, and I began to dig through for my headphones. It was going to be a long ride.

The driver said, "Where are you headed?", which seemed too normal. I think his accent made it seem that way.

I paused my search for headphones, and said, "I'm going to Peru." It was so cool. I was so anxious to be there.

He said, "Oh, you're going to Peru, I'm from there."

I had guessed wrong. He wasn't Indian, he was Peruvian. I couldn't believe it. It was so cool.

I quickly zipped my back-pack back up. I had questions I wanted to ask.

I said, "Wow, really? That's so cool. Which city are you from?"

He said, "I'm from Lima. You know it?"

It was so cool! I was going to Lima. I said, "Do you know Cayetano Heredia University?"

He said, "University Cayetano Heredia? Yeah, it's not far from my family's home."

"Unbelievable!" I said, "I'm going to Cayetano Heredia University."

He seemed quite surprised at that. He said, "You're going to be a student at Cayetano Heredia University?", and his voice rose when he did, surely because he was shocked. And he asked, "Why?"

I said, "I'm going to be a Study Abroad foreign exchange student there." I turned my head slightly, looked at his hands on the wheel, and said, "It's going to be a life-changing journey."

"A life-changing journey?", he repeated, and turned to face me for a moment, then said, "Why?"

The concrete curbs along the side of the road were empty of parked cars. There weren't many cars driving yet either. It was still early.

I said, "Most people go to a school close to their home, or to a big out-of-state school with a great reputation." Before finishing my statement, I turned to look at him. He was watching the road, but nodded his head. He remained silent, and I finished, "I'm leaving the country to go to a foreign university."

He began turning the car onto the freeway onramp, and said, "I don't get it. How is going to a university in Lima going to be a life-changing journey for you?"

I said, "Because I have lived here my whole life, and I don't know what it's like in other countries." Which was the truth. I was so excited to get to Lima and see what it was like there.

He said, "It's just Lima. I don't think it's going to change your life." Then he looked at me twice. The first time I caught it out of the corner of my eye. The second time, we made eye contact briefly, he smiled, then turned back to the road and said, "I think you will enjoy yourself at Cayetano Heredia University, but not change your life."

He didn't get it. I could have gone to any university. I said, "You don't get it. I, literally, have lived here my whole entire life. Like literally, my whole life! Living in Peru for four years is going to totally change my life."

He said, "I think you will have some good experiences in Lima, and school will be good for you. There's not really anything there that's going to change your life though. What do you think will change your life in Peru?"

I said, "Everything! I've only seen pictures and heard about it. Other than that, I don't know what it's going to be like at all. Now, I am actually going."

He said, "You will like it. The people in Lima, Peru, are very friendly. I don't think it will change your life though. I think you will learn a lot about Peruvian people while you are in school, then you will come back home and go back to being the same. Not change your life though."

I said, "How can you say that? I'm going to go to school in a foreign country where they don't even speak my language. I am going to take classes taught in Spanish during my first year. Nobody does that."

He said, "Oh, you speak Spanish. That's really good. You are going to be able to have a lot of conversations while you are there."

He just didn't get it. Peru had a culture way different than I had ever been exposed to. I said, "Look, they don't even wear shorts in Peru. Everything is different there. The heritage, the customs, everything is different there."

He said, "Didn't you bring shorts? You should go to the beach. It's very popular."

I said, "I know about the beaches. I might go. It just depends."

He said, "Oh, you know about the beaches. How do you know about the beaches?"

I said, "I saw them on the brochure. They are on the internet too." I had done a lot of research. I knew everything about Peru. The beaches where just a small part of what I knew.

He said, "The internet? Can you show me?"

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and said, "Yeah, sure." Then, I did a quick internet search.

When the search results populated, I selected the "image" tab, then held the phone out to him and said, "See!"

He glanced quickly away from the road, and then back. He said, "Can you give me your phone so I can see?"

I said, "Ok, here, take it."

He took it from my hand and held it in front of his steering wheel. Once he'd had a second or two with it, he said, "Wow, yeah, that's Lima, Peru. That's my home." Then, handed me my phone back, and said, "I think that after you finish school and come back home, you will agree that going to Peru did not change your life."

That was it. I'd had enough. I said, "Look! Going to Peru is going to change my life! I have never been to college before. I'm going in Peru. I have never lived somewhere where I would have to speak Spanish all of the time. I will in Peru. I have never been somewhere where they don't wear shorts. And no, I have never been to a beach in Lima, Peru! Going to Lima, Peru, is going to be a life-changing journey."

He said, "Ok, maybe it will change your life, but not for me. For me, it's just home."

I didn't have much else to say about it. I was going to go to Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru, and it was going to be a life-changing journey.

He continued driving down the freeway, and we both remained silent for several minutes. I was going on a life-changing journey. That was that. I unzipped my back-pack and found my headphones. The airport was still a long ways away.

The End