Over the last couple of months I’ve shared some experiences from my year studying abroad. Here’s another random memory.
This one day I had to go do my laundry, so a friend drove me to the laundromat where I loaded the machine, and sat down with my book, to wait for the cycle to finish. As a habit, I always carry a book when I have an errand like this (In fact I carry a book all the time. This time it was Shiva Trilogy 1 by Amish Tripathi). After a bit my gaze drifted across the room to where a beautiful girl stood with earphones in her ears. I went up to her and said, “Hi”. She removed her earphones, saw the book in my hand and asked me if I was Indian, to which I replied “yes”. We introduced ourselves, and surprisingly she was also there for a year under the study abroad program from Amity University, where she was a Fashion Design major.
Beautiful Ohana (indeed, that was her name) asked me if I’d been downtown. When I replied in the negative, she offered to take me right then.
It was a wonderful experience visiting downtown and walking through the prettily lit Chinatown. The streetmarkets there were as charming as the food was bad. I mean really bland, sligthly sweet chinese food… Ugh. Ohana laughed merrily as I grimaced at my sweet supper. And what a beautiful laugh it was.
The evening ended all too soon with Ohana educating me on the subway system, that was free for students carrying their ID cards. We exchanged numbers and parted.
The evening became a pretty memory to me, and an encouragement to explore the city on the subway. Always carrying my ID, availing the free transport facility.
A word of advice – always carry your ID, and be friendly, you don’t know what you’ll learn, or what memory you’ll make.
