The Things We Carried

It was May 28, 2010 and my sister and I were on our way to Vietnam. I was 16 and she was 13 and we were traveling by ourselves to a foreign place. I’m not quite sure who thought it would be a good idea to have to young people traveling by themselves, but we were excited to see some of our family in Vietnam. The flight was 16 hours long and who would of thought that airplane food was actually tasty. We both didn’t know how to speak Vietnamese so we carried the fear of getting lost and not knowing what to do when we landed. We were finally there and we carried our backpack and our carry on luggage off of the plane. It was so nice to get up and walk again. We walked with confidence and took big strides towards the man who would check our passports. He didn’t smile and told us to go on through. We then walked to the luggage claim to get a few boxes that carried over some food and clothes for our family there in Vietnam. There were four big boxes that weighed 50 pounds each. So we each carried in our carts a backpack, luggage, and two boxes. We walked towards the glass windows and walked outside. There were many people standing outside also waiting for their loved ones. We didn’t have the phone number of my grandparents, so there was no way to contact them. So we walked back and forth outside the terminal carrying so much stuff until finally we found our grandparents and the rest of the family carrying welcoming signs, flowers, and some food for both my sister and I. Then we finally carried tears because we were finally there.