Lisa signed the contract with her agency. She was going to travel and be an au pair for this family for exactly one year. After she signed the contract, she collected a great deal of paperwork. Shortly after, she received her Visa in the post. She started getting excited about the journey she was about to go on. This was the happiest Lisa had been. She had been studying for four years and she was looking forward to the change of scenery.
According to the conditions, Lisa would receive a great opportunity for learning the culture, communicating with her host family and the children, a modest little room, food (which was very different from the food in her country), as well as a salary that was so little that many referred to it as pocket money for ice cream or pins.
Of course in exchange for all that, Lisa had to take care of someone else’s children. Not everyone would have enough courage and determination to leave their adjusted quiet life in a small town, as well as their beloved family and friends to go to a new country, where they had nobody, and didn’t speak the language. But Lisa‘s soul, so young and naive, certainly wanted to fly to some mysterious and beautiful country.
2
After the contract was signed, Lisa had to collect a necessary mountain of documents before the trip. It seemed to be almost impossible to fill the numerous in the questionnaires, tests, and have an interview at the embassy, but the obstacles were overcome, and all the documents were ready. Soon, the economy class flight ticket “Lovely small provincial town – Big City was in her fragile hands. Checking the tickets, money, Lisa found it was impossible to sleep the night before the flight, but there was something exciting and unusual in the air.
At 23:00 the night before the trip, Lisa lay on her bed in her room. She was nervous about the trip. She was going to be far away from her family for a full year, without any friends or connections. She was also going to be away from her loving cat. Lisa was going to miss the sound of her purring. She heard a growl from beside her, where her cat was. After tonight, all that remained between her and her new job was a nights' stay in the hotel.
Before she could fall asleep, Lisa looked around her room. She had the feeling she was forgetting something important. Maybe it was just her books. She wasn't used to being without them after four years. Now, she no longer needed them. She wasn't sure how to feel.
She was getting to travel quite the distance. Her excitement only grew.
The following day at 9.31 am, Lisa was waiting at the train station. She climbed into the cabin of the long, dark train. After she found her seat and settled in, she rested her head against the window. She needed to take a nap. She had tossed and turned all night and she was exhausted.
At 2:00 pm, Lisa was at the airport. She had just gone through the security check before walking through the terminal. This was the first time she wanted to cry. She was excited and nervous. Her best friend had come along to see her off. She hugged her tightly. They both had moist eyes and held back their tears. Lisa didn't actually cry, but she felt like she was going to.
Her loving parents told Lisa that she was free and could control her own life. Tears welled in her eyes when her mother kissed her, when she said goodbye to friends and all had been known to her for the past twenty-two years.
“Be good, and enjoy your year of freedom!” Her friend cheered. This rang through Lisa's head as she headed off to board the plane. She waved back to her friend, forcing a smile to form on her face.
At 15:30, Lisa was on the plane, waiting for the take-off. She was nervous. She had no fear of flying, but she was uncomfortable. She guessed it was because of her different emotions. She was excited to be taking this trip and exploring a new world. But, she was also nervous about the uncertainty of the journey.
The plane sped up, and familiar destinations, neat squares, streets, green fields, and rivers flashed before her eyes through a window. It was so strange and unusual to see the horizon, melting away under their feet. The plane was still gaining speed, lifting up from the ground and soon they were flying above the clouds, farther and farther away from her house and her past.
Lisa sat in the chair of the aircraft. She had a thousand thoughts whirring around in her head. Back and forth, making her nauseous. She was moving from a small village into a big city. She wondered what the city would look like. She wondered if her host family was going to meet her at the airport. If not, then, how were they going to be introduced? Was it going to be awkward or was it going to be welcoming? They seemed warm and inviting in their correspondence. But, what would their children think of her? Lisa hadn't spoke to the children yet. She only knew their ages. She wondered if she would spend the entire year with this host family. Then, she wondered about her language skills. Was it going to be easy for her to learn a new language when she only knew the basics?
Lisa wasn't afraid of the unknown. It wasn't scary to her. Her heart longed for something new and unusual. She wanted to see an unknown city in an unknown country. She wanted to meet people who spoke an unknown language. She wanted to eat food she had never seen before. She wanted all the new experiences. Her heartbeat raced as she thought about her destination. She felt like a teenage girl suddenly. She was going to arrive soon. She was going to experience all these new things in only a few hours. A new life awaited her arrival.
She looked out the window, trying to escape from her thoughts. Through the fogged glass of the window, everything seemed different and unusual. She watched as the plane lifted off the ground and headed into the sky. She watched the ground get further and further away. It flew over the famous places, manicured parks and roads. It passed over green fields and blue rivers. She felt like a young bird that was flying away from the parental nest of her old life.
The air plane continued to rise, and begun flying into the horizon. Lisa had never seen the clouds up close, now they were covering the windows. When she looked out, all she saw was an endless sky. There was no more ground. She was above everything and everyone. She looked at the window in a dream state. The air plane continued flying through the sky to the anonymity of an unknown country.
3
Her new life began at 7:00 am, at a huge airport in one of the enormous cities. It was a city of great hopes, where people spoke a different languages, where some other flowers are blooming, and where the wind smelled different to home. Lisa’s heart pounded because she was no longer in her calm, quiet provincial town where she grew up. She was in a restless, noisy, huge city.
Having successfully gone through many hours of registration upon arrival (and finding that she understood the foreign language of this country—sleepless nights at the University were not a waste of time), Lisa stood with what little luggage she had in her arms and high hopes in her heart. A little checkered luggage tag served as the identification mark by which the host family could recognize her, as agreed in their correspondence. Now knocking with her tiny heels, Lisa rolled her luggage through the airport. She could not calm down as the excitement did not leave her, because today, after landing in this big city, a whole period of her life had ended, and tomorrow a new one would start. All of it was unusual and unknown.
Finding a secluded place, Lisa sat modestly on a gray iron bench and peered into the crowd. Her eyes searched for her host family, whom she knew only from a little picture she had seen on the Internet.
An ocean of deafening sounds and boiling city life surrounded Lisa. A huge crowd of people arrived at the city lights like moths. It was a promised city, a fertile ground for unfulfilled ambition. People were running and running. People from all over the world were now landing in the airports of this big city of big dreams, which held the key to their possible plans, hopes, and illusions. They fled, paced or walked thoughtfully across the airport. They came here to their friends, relatives, loved ones, and colleagues.