My very first time in New Haven

 

    Lais told me that I should write about it.

Actually, I think it is a funny story, so I will indeed write it down.

Also, I want to remember what has been my very first impression of New Haven, and of the U.S. more generally.

So, on Friday, July 1st, I took a plane in Paris.

I mean I spent the previous night at a friend’s place because I had to leave my apartment – a very stressful night because my friend kept repeating me that nobody will never let me fly with such a heavy luggage. Then, I took a bus sooo early in the morning, then the subway and finally I arrived at the airport. When I arrived there, three hours earlier, I realized that there was a strike at the airport, and I strongly believed that I will never be able to fly away. But I finally did. After eight hours in a freezing plane, I arrived in New York. Crossing the boarders was probably the most stressful thing, however a nice CPB Officer welcomed me and I have been surprisingly quite easily able to pick up my heavy luggage (I forgot to mention that I of course had to pay, at the airport in Paris, the extra fees for my suitcase). It have been very reassuring.

Then, I took a train from Newark to New Haven (I met on the platform two very nice young women who freaked up as much as I did when the train disappeared from the board), and a kind of train shuttle up to New Haven. That is at that precise moment that troubles began.

It was already late at night in the U.S., and there was not a single soul at the train station to ask for my direction. So I took my heavy luggage and I went for a walk on the main street I could see, and when I saw human beings I immediately asked them the direction. They kindly gave it to me, and I walked with my heavy luggage for thirty more minutes after a trip long for almost an entire day. Finally, I arrived at my airbnb. I was exhausted. But that is not the end of the story.

When I arrived at the place, the doors were closed of course and I couldn’t reach the owner because I still couldn’t get access to the Internet, nor the wifi. But I needed the instructions to come in the apartment. I thus crossed the street to ask for help in a little grocery.

The owner of the grocery allowed me to use his wifi for like five minutes because he was about to close. It wasn’t enough time for me to reach the guy from the Airbnb, so I did not have other choice than to go to New Haven Hospital, with my even more and more heavy luggage.

I did not have the chance to come in because a voice in the intercom at the entrance asked me if I was employed in the U.S. I was too tired to try to figure out what was happening to me, thus I stayed just in front of the doors of the building to use the wifi. I have finally been able to reach my host, to take in the instructions to enter the airbnb, and I went away.

I arrived in a very dark street, and the apartment was located in a worrying courtyard. Of course, I also had trouble picking up the keys and I had to ask for a neighbor’s assistance.

When I finally opened the door, I found myself facing a sixty years-old stranger only wearing a shower towel as a clothe. I can still see myself thinking I was going to be raped on my very first night in New Haven.

But I survived my stay in this very weird shared apartment in New Haven. Actually, the stranger was not that mean, and I even met there a guy that was, just like me, about to study at Yale for the 2022 summer session.