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24 hours of flying across half the world later, the immigration officer asks, “You are Siti…?” Even though I hate being called that, my head gives both a nod and a shake: an incoherence resulting from getting only 3 hours of sleep within the past, well, 24 hours. Thankfully, I wasn't suspected of any misgivings and I was allowed through. I made it to New York City. I made it to the USA.

I was studying in an American university that had a campus in Singapore. SUNY University at Buffalo invited their Singapore students to study campus in Buffalo, New York. That meant 5 months away from my family, my friends and my country. Even so, I would never give up a chance like this, so away I went.

New York was my first pit stop before Buffalo (ok it was the third if you counted my flight transits in Doha and Paris). I was much too fatigued to have any sort of culture shock, or maybe there weren’t a lot of cultural differences between Singapore and NYC in the first place. I remember waiting for the hired cab take me to the hotel in Brooklyn. I remember checking in, washing up, searching for food. In the midst of all that, I had my first real (and painful) blast of jet lag.

I found out that NYC is called the Big Apple for a reason: the 2 days we spent there made me realize that yes NYC is huge, but underneath the bright, hard-ish exterior, there was a distinct sweetness. This sweetness came from the kindness of the people we met. The distinct culture of NYC stems from a unique amalgam of so many different cultures. Everything just came together to create that distinct sweetness. Being at the steps of the Public Library, roaming the halls of MoMA, gallivanting through Central Park … I cannot believe I was ever in such a great city.

I took a domestic flight from NYC to Buffalo: I’ve never been on a plane so small. For someone who used to hate flying, the claustrophobic-ness of it all was unnerving. Thankfully I was so exhausted that I knocked out for most of the flight. This constant cycle of airplanes and flying and fatigued, really helped me get over my fear of flying. So now I think to myself, “12-hours of flying? Nah there’s no kick to that! Give me 24-hours!”

I woke up 20 minutes to landing, and looked out my window: it was all white. All I saw was snow. I grew up on a tropical island so this was an incredible sight for me. How on earth did I end up in this temperate climate? It was surreal, and after 5 months of being here, it’s still as surreal.