The Initial Journey

Will Virgo

English 101 53

Brownlee

9/13/05

The Initial Journey

Moving somewhere when only a child can be extremely traumatic for a child to have to go through. Leaving everything they have ever known and going somewhere where they have never been and is totally different from what they are used to. Luckily I moved to America when I was young enough that it wasn’t as big a deal as If I moved when I was older. Unlike the average American family I haven’t been raised in the same region or area for my entire life. I was born In England and almost immediately moved to the United Arab Emirates. I lived there for about two and a half years then I moved back to England where I lived for 3 years then I made the trip across the pond to the U.S. of A.

I was just a little to young to remember my time in the U.A.E. but the move to America was a major happening in my life. I can still remember the last day of school before I left telling my friends and teachers that I would be back in three years not realizing that This move would be as intense and life changing as it was. The drive to the airport was the longest 45 minutes of my entire life. We get to the airport and being the 5 year old that I was I didn’t want to wait to get through customs; I wanted to get on the plane and feel the crazy feeling in my stomach when you take off. Finally we got all of our luggage checked in and we are finally ready to board the plane. All I had on board with me was my original game boy, which is about the size of a laptop these days, and a plastic dinosaur. I was just as ADD as I am now you couldn’t have paid me to sit still. I would get up make my parents chase me all around the plane. They would try watch the movie but I wouldn’t let them I would bug them beyond all belief. The best thing about all of it was that they couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t want to leave they were making me.

Finally the eight and a half hour plane flight was over. We touched down in Atlanta on January 4th 1993. I can remember looking out the window as we landed, letting my dinosaur see the new world that I had just discovered. I hadn’t seen anything like it. Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is enormous compared to airports I had seen in my past. I get off the plane and retrieve my bags and start heading down the hallway toward the airport exit. I felt like the king of the world walking shoulder to shoulder with my dad and my big brother. I felt like there was nothing that could stop me. Little did I know that I would be starting school in only a couple