Saturday, March 23, 2013

A Trip of a Lifetime





Alya Al-Shbibi
College of Education, English
      
 Once I dreamt of being on a plane travelling to nowhere with a confused feeling of joy and worry. The plane left me in a place where I haven't seen before. The place was seething with people and my eyes were moving here and there to glance everything I might encounter.  Everything seemed different to me: new faces, different language and a strange weather.  As I walked, I become more and more cold till I was about to scream and suddenly, I heard a sound from a long distance saying: "Alya wake up! You are in London."
Yes my dream has finally come true, I am in England, Great Britain or the 'dreamland' as they call it.  The funny thing that I've faced from the first step in England is that their summer is as cold as our Omani winter.  I am not joking. I was about to cry because of the extreme cold.  From that moment, I knew that I was opening different chapters of experiences as it was a movement from the extreme east to the extreme west. From hot weather, conservative people and a great heritage to cold weather, free people and a glorious country - as they say "the empire on which the sun never sets.'
I was comparing everything to Oman but unfortunately, Oman and Britain can't be compared.  I was impressed and overwhelmed by the range of services and the imposing buildings. I was enjoying the weather and the English's hospitality.  In contrary, a thing that made me said is that nobody knew my lovely Oman. Whenever anybody asked me about my country, I said with great enthusiasm 'Oman!' But that enthusiasm did not last very long as their facial expression tells that they have never heard of it. Then I had to tell them about Dubai and that it is one of the Gulf countries. At the end, they knew exactly which part of the world Oman lies in.
One new thing I was forced to learn was reading maps. Wherever we went we had to get a map, otherwise we would get lost. Gradually, I started to change my mind about the importance of maps. And I said, since people don’t know Oman, I can show English my country and avoid embarrassment. However, after such a trip I have figured that we need to quit using maps help. Indeed, we have to create our own maps to design our right path to the future.  That was a trip which I enjoyed and benefited from and now I can say proudly that such a trip was a trip of a lifetime. 

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