A Bitter-Sweet Day

February 9th, 1990 was a bitter-sweet day: going to America was our dream for a long time, and this day it was happening.

On the other hand, not only did we need to leave behind everything we owned, all our family and friends, but we had to say good bye to our 17 months old son.

Can you imagine that? Yes, we knew we would eventually be reunited, but what we didn’t know was WHEN that would be. And as you’ll see later on, life threw us some curves!

We left our home at 5 AM. Our son was sleeping so peacefully! I can still see his little face turned to the side and I will forever have it etched in my mind’s eye.

My mom stayed home with our son, so we said our goodbyes there. My dad drove us to the airport, and the drive there was very quiet, as hundreds of thoughts ran through our minds.

We said good bye to my dad at about 6 AM, and then got ushered into the airplane: excitement and panic were fighting for space in our hearts.

As we left Romania, I looked one more time at the window, and said a prayer for our future: an unknown future.

We left our home country with 2 pieces of luggage and $100 in our pocket.

Our first stop was in Frankfurt, East Germany, where we planned to see my brother while we waited for our next flight (about 2 hours). Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, and he wasn’t allowed to come into the part of the airport we were in, and of course, we weren’t allowed to go out of that area. We saw him from the distance, and talked to him on one of the airport phones.

We also spent our first $5 in that airport: my husband bought me a banana and a Belgian chocolate. You see…. I loved bananas and chocolate, but only had bananas a few times in my lifetime, and the chocolate we had access to wasn’t the best.

Our next flight would take us to New York, where we would stop for a day before continuing our journey.

Next time I’ll tell you about my first impression of America. Stay tuned.