the flight landed. at 9am i remember.
there was something that i didn’t expect – snow.
my plane couldn’t park at the gate and just sat on the runway for five hours. no internet, no contact, no one. i started panicking.
i landed in Canada for the first time, right in the middle of a snowstorm. back then, it was the first and only heavy snowfall i had experienced in BC. i thought, oh, maybe I’ll just stay here for a few minutes, and everything’s gonna settle down. but no, my thoughts were wrong. i realized i gonna be stuck here for a while, especially when the flight attendants brought out another main meal, for lunch, or maybe breakfast. i wasn’t hungry anyway.
4pm.
finally, a small bus came to rescue us. was it really small? haiz it should’ve been bigger than the one in my local airport. but i still remember the face of the bus driver, he looked tired and… cold.
i started seeing many people pulling out their luggage and finding pieces of warm clothing. i had mine under the seat: a navy uniqlo jacket, long enough to cover my knees, and fit perfectly on my shoulder. i pulled my white turtleneck out of my carry-on on the way out of the plane. full combo to stay warm for my first winter experience.
called auntie Hang-my landlord, called parents, and called Anh – my best friend. everyone had been worried about me since they hadn’t heard from me for so long. after receiving all the necessary documents, i finally had a chance to breathe, to actually sit down and calm down, to navigate what had just happened in my life.
was the snow meant to ruined my first experience in canada, was it the first sign of the challenges i’d face in this country, and in the journey i had chosen? was the snow just showed me how harsh the weather could be, and that i needed to be fully prepared for every temperature?
or maybe… was it my first success? proof to my parents and myself that i was going to overcome things, no matter how hard they were?
oh, this really was the first experience that changed my whole mind: snow is actually… not that beautiful. i was wearing my old adidas running shoes at the time, and they quickly turned dirty from the melting snow and slushy water. they were no longer white, every mesh had met its own “dirty” friends, and they’ve never been the same since. but those shoes had their moment. they got to step on snow for the first time, to feel the cold, and to experience what it’s like to be in another country, far from where they came from. and their new friend-snow-wasn’t actually that cold.
maybe it was because i wore too many layers, which made me kind of hot. or maybe….. it wasn’t as cold as i had expected.
the latter was true.
and to see more how my life was going in winter, the photos are here!