Day 1 (The Arrival and first impressions)

We arrived at 3 pm. We reached the "passport control" after a while because the airport was huge. I was stuck there for a while, they interviewed me and it took a long time for me to get out. I was too exhausted to go through this ordeal but I had to do so. The name of the booth "position closed" really worried me. I'm not lying here but really the idea of me going back to Egypt crossed my mind. A few hours ago, I was talking to Dina about pursuing my graduate studies in the United States but when this happened, I started reconsidering that. Not that I don''t want to come here again. It's a beautiful country and they have excellent schools but I hope I don't find difficulties entering the country again. One of my earliest observations was that most of the employees at JFK were Americans of Indian descent. This was interesting for me to see because I've read that New York is home to a large indian community. Many of them came from East Africa in the 1970's and 19980's. Indians were not the only ethnic group at JFK. I noticed many different ethnicities and nationalities. This is amazing because America is a diverse country and JFK should've represented this diversity and it did.Í heard alot of languages there. In America, I got the feeling that diveristy here is considered a blessing.
We took a shuttle from JFK to the Holiday INN hotel. I heard alot of Spanish there and I noticed that most of the staff were Latino's. The lady who drove the shuttle was a Latin woman in her 30's. When I saw her, I remembered the stories I read a week ago,the ones written by Stephen Franklin. I imagined her to be a recent immigrant,single-mother and she must be working hard to educate her children. I also thought that her husband is not living in the US, she is here alone.When she helped me carry my bag, I thought about the feminization of immigration. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. She seemed independant,hardworking and intelligent but she also seemed overworked and stressed-out. Immigration is not a very narrow topic like I thought it is. I'm just starting to absorb the enormity of this topic. Later that day, we went to McDonalds at night and again I noticed the presence of Latinó's there. I noticed that Latino's only speak Spanish to their friends, children and family.They only speak English if they are communicating with other Americans.Unlike the refugees in Cairo, Latino's here are very comfortable and they look at home in America.
We drove from LA to Santa Babara. It took us about 4 hours to get there because we stopped a couple of times on the way. I noticed a couple of different international restaurants such as a Chinese and an Italian one. We stopped at Neptune's Net for lunch. I noticed the presence of Latino's there. I noticed again that most of the Latino families there were made up of mothers and children. I don't know if they are single mothers or if the fathers are too busy working and making money.Most people there smiled at us which made me feel very comfortable. The employees at Neptune's Ner represented the diveristy of America. They were composed of European-Americans,African-American, Asian-American and Latin-American.The Upham Inn Hotel is located in Sola Street. It is only a block away from State Street, where all the cafes, shopping and entertainment are located.After resting for a while, we went around the place. We came across a very interesting shop. I don't remember the name of the store but I remember their interesting shirts. A very interesting shirt was one of Bush senior and Bush junior, it said "dumb and dumber". I was surprised when I saw it. Not because of what is written on the shirt but simply because of the American "freedom of expression". I'm not used to this kind of freedom. We can't critcize our government but here, it is different. This is America after all. A free country.