It was a tough preparation. Get the passport, Fill in all the forms to send to the Wayne State University, Pay taxes and taxes, get the visa, etc. But thanks God we did it. We left Brazil on the 4th of January, 2006 at 7:30, leaving from Belo Horizonte with a stop in Sao Paulo. We arrived first in Washington DC on the 5th of January 2006 at 7:00 AM and Almost missed our flight to Detroit which should leave at 7:30. One of our friends stayed behind and had to come in the next flight, which was delayed 4 hours.
Finally all of us got to Detroit on the 5th of January. Our luggage was delayed but arrived with the next flight. We had a hard time bringing it to the dorms, since we had only one car avaylable to do that. Fortunatly I had the idea of emptiing one of the bags and using my Black Belt to tie the luggage compartiment door. Then, we came, I, Fernanda and Professor Marotti from Wayne State, to the dorm. The other students were already there. Only I had came back with Professor Marotti to take the luggage. The university restaurants were closed on the first three days, so we had to find some place to eat, although we had schedulled a meal plan for the semester.
The following day was a kind of knowing the place day. We tried to visit the most important places on the campus and to deal with all the process involved in our enrollment at the University and our staying in the dorms.
The place is really beautiful. Wonderful buildings, museums, an enormous public library to wich we have access, a good computers lab, etc.
We had problems to proced our enrolments, since we were not allowed to do it before we had obtained our health insurance. The lack of information made the process a little dificult. Professor Marotti helped us in all that he could and took us to talk to the right people who helped us with all the necessary.
Finally we had our health insurance and accomodations and were more relaxed.
On the weekend we had dinner at Professor Marotti's house. His wife was adorable and received us with all her kindness. It was a great night. We were very pleased.
The classes began in the first business day just after our arrival. Some teachers were scary, but I tried to enroll in the subjects that were more related to my professional goals. I enrolled for a subject in Literature, one in culture, one in Film and two topics in music as extra curricular content.
Now it's been three weeks since we arrived and the classes have really started!
So far, I haven't been able to find any job. I'm trying, but it's more difficult that I had imagined.
From the first day of classes the University restaurant was open and we had access to it. The food is so different. We're having a hard time trying to addapt to it. Sometimes it's very spicy and sometimes it sounds tasteless to us.
I had some problems with my roomate at the beginning but now we're gettin on quite well. The problem is that he's from other culture (Arab) and his habits quite shocked me at first, but we talked and reached some agreements and now all its ok. He's a nice person, just has cultural differences and I'm trying to respect that.
The other roommate, Brandon, is also a very nice guy. He's African-American and he rarely comes to the dorms. In fact, he rarely shows up. But he came one day and took us to watch and auto-motor show here in detroit. He's very nice.
Let me tell you how I lost my passport and how I found it on the next day. I came to the library and I was wearing a coat. I left the coat on the chair. I got up and went up stairs to get some books and a video tape to watch in the library. I forgot all about the coat, in which pocket was my passport. I was leaving the library when I reminded of the coat and the passport. I came back but the coat had gone. I got very upset. I asked at the front desk but nobody had found it. I went to my room and tried to sleep. Very early on the next day I came to the library and started asking people if they had seen my coat. Nobody had. Then I printed some adds asking people to turn the coat in at the front desk if they found it. Fortunatly, I decided to ask at the front desk again. The attendant told me that the homeless people used to get the clothes people forgot in the library. I had seen a man that seemed very familiar to me and I supposed he was one of the homeless. I decided to ask him if he hadn't seen my coat. For my suprise an happines he had really found my coat. The passport was at the same place. He gave it back to me with the passport. I was very glad that day and I thanked God for his mercy and kindness.
(to be continued)
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