Safe Landing

So once I arrived in Newark I had to go thorough immigration. I had been told by APIA that it can take 2+hours to get through, but realistically it took me less than 30 minutes. All they needed was my visa/passport and a document I had received in my placement pack, I walked through to baggage collection and then made my way towards the exit hoping I would meet someone on the other side.

There was a woman, called Jackie, holding up a bright pick 'Au Pair In America' sign in front of a clipboard. She sat me next to a girl, her name was Frida and she was from Sweden and had arrived a little sooner than I had. We were then moved to another terminal to await the arrival of some more girls from Germany. There were about 6 in total, who all arrived speaking German together making Frida and I a little cut off. I was so thankful there was another none German speaking girl there!!

When everyone had arrived we were put on a mini-bus to take us to the hotel where we would be staying in Tarrytown. It was warm and the hotel was gorgeous, I couldn't believe we were in AMERICA! We left our bags in the hotel lobby and went for a brief talk on our stay here. We had to show that our passports had been stamped, were were told how to apply for a social security number, we got our Au Pair t-shirts and our hotel rooms. Although my room was not ready yet Frida's was and so the pair of us went to go and see what the rooms we were staying in looked like. The rooms were set out for 3 Au Pairs who will be living near one another for the year. We entered Frida's room and found two girls sat in her room already, one who was living in Washington DC with Frida and a girl she had recently met and shared a language with (Afrikaans) who would be living in Boston.

Me and Frida wandered the grounds for a little while and kept checking to see if my room was ready yet. I was eager to meet people I would be living with. I got my room and it was still empty, we ate tea and then at about 8pm US time, 3am my time I went to bed.