Defining moment

In life everyone of us has to make countless amount of decisions, which in smaller or greater way would influence our life. Several of those decisions will have a huge impact on our lives. One decision could change your live for ever. Have you ever asked yourself, has any decision, that I or someone else took, changed my life for ever in very tremendous way? I have and the answer is, yes it had.
Everything started on April the 20th in Poland. It was a sunny lovely day. The beauty of spring was everywhere around me. I could smell newborn flowers which surrounded me. I felt as if I was just born. I was walking to school just as I did everyday. On my way to school, like always, I met my best friend, Chris. While we were walking to school he reminded me about the math test in the two first periods which I had totally forgotten about. Anyway I didn’t panic since I was really good at math. When we got to school we had twenty minutes left to first lesson. Chris, who was terrible at math, asked me if I could help him study, and I agreed.

After twenty minutes of studying, we went to math class. Miss gave us test with a time limit of one hour. After fifteen minutes I finished the test and gave it to teacher. She was so surprised that she immediately checked it. After five minutes she called me up and told me that I got 96%, plus that I only had made one mistake. Chris passed so he thanked me all day because I helped him. To return the favor he invited me to his house so that we could play Playstation. From Chris’s house I called my mom and told her I would be home at 5:00, she agreed. Chris and I had fun playing Playstation, I had to go home for the reason that it was getting late. The day seemed ordinary until the evening.
When I got home I changed my clothes and washed my hands. My mom called whole family for dinner. When I got to the kitchen I realized that my mom was behaving in a strange way. Went we sat by the table to eat my mom and my dad were a little bit nervous. I knew something strange was going on. After we ate my dad wanted to tell us something but he couldn’t get it out of him, so my mom said it instead of my dad that me and my brother should go to the living room. I thought that it was about a huge phone bill which I had made a part in because I always talk to my friends.

I was really scared. When we got there my dad announced in a really nervous way that we were going to live in Cuba for four years, he also said that we were leaving at the end of August. I asked my dad why we were going, and what was about the school. He responded that he was going to work in the Polish embassy in Havana and that we were going to go to an international school there.
I was shocked. I was really mad, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone no more that night. I ran to my room as fast as possible and locked my self in it. The whole evening I asked my self how it was going to be there. Would I find any new friends? How am I going to communicate in Cuban? I didn’t know a single word in that language. Everything seemed unbelievable. “My life changed tremendously just, because of one stupid decision”, I thought.

The next day was even worst, I was terrified. I couldn’t imagine how it’s going to be there in Cuba. Finally I decided to ask my dad all of those questions, I thought last night. He laughed and said, “First off all there is no Cuban language; the language they speak is Spanish, plus you are going to study in English which you already know. Second off all we are going to live the same way as in Poland. You are going to have friends there and the only difference will be that your grandparents, cousins, uncles as well as aunts are going to stay in Poland”. I began to understand how it was going to be then. I started to be happy again, but I had still one question left in my mind. “Aren’t we going to see our family for four years”, I asked. He laughed again. After laughing he said, “We are going to vacation in Poland every year”. I was thanking my day all day, because he resolved some uncertainties and finally I understood how it is going to be in Cuba. I felt much better than in the morning.
My life went back to normal; I was going to school and seeing my friends like everyday, before my dad told me that we are going to live in Cuba for the first time. Time went quickly, and then it was almost August. One day my dad came back from work with a documentary on Cuba. In addition he said that we were leaving Poland in two weeks. The first thing I did was I watched the movie. I didn’t like it at all. Cuba looked like Poland 30 years before, but I had no choice. I had to go there.

The day before my family took the plane to Cuba we went to say good bye to my grandparents, cousins, aunts as well as to uncles. Afterwards I went to say bye to my friends. When I got home I packed all the things I could. The night before, I couldn’t sleep at all. I felt a sleep late in the night, as I was thinking all the time about Cuba.

On August 26th at 5:00 AM my parents woke me up, saying that we had the flight in three hours. After we ate we called a taxi. When it came we packed all our baggage in the car and left my house. The trip to the airport took about an hour. When we got to airport we still had an hour and a half left till the plane left. We checked in the baggage. Afterwards we went to passport control. In duty free I bought loads of candies since I was afraid there wouldn’t be any in Cuba, and what I saw in the documentary I was afraid I would starve to death.

Finally it was time, so we went to get on the plane. The plane wasn’t flying directly to Cuba. We had a stop in Paris. The flight from Warsaw to Paris took us two hours. We still had three hours in Paris to wait for the plane to Havana. What we did was, we went shopping in Duty free. My mom bought a lot of stuff, but I only bought a school bag. Then it was again time for boarding. The plane we were flying on was huge. My dad said it was a Boeing 747, the biggest plane in the world. The flight to Havana was really long; it took us eight hours.
While the plane was landing I was looking all the time through the window. I was anxious to see Cuba with my own eyes. I was paying a lot of attention to the vegetation witch Cuba had. I expected the vegetation to be same as in Poland, but I was wrong. When we got to Havana, it was extremely hot as well as humid. When we claimed our baggage, we went outside the airport. There was a person from the Polish embassy waiting for us. The trip from the airport to our new house took us thirty minutes. When I got to my house I immediately turned on the AC because it was too hot for me. It was late by then so I went to sleep.

In the morning the first thing I wanted to do was to walk around my neighborhood, but my mom made me eat breakfast. I wanted to see and explore Havana so that I would not live in fear no more. Afterwards she gave me a map and asked me if I would like to have a walk around the neighborhood. The first impressions I had of Cuba weren’t brilliant, since I felt in Cuba like I was on a different planet in addition I felt depressed. When I came back I started to play computer games until midnight, so that I could avoid and forget about Cuba’s images which stayed in my mind.

The next day on August 27th school started. I was going to sixth grade. When I got to school the Homeroom teacher Ms.Ofelia, introduced me and all the new students to the rest of class. I was almost sure that I won’t make any new friends in Cuba, but I was wrong. I made new friends with Ryo who was from Japan, and Francisco, from Chile. They weren’t any different from the friends I had in Poland. They treated me the same way my friend in Poland did.

The school wasn’t difficult at all, especially math classes which seemed basic to me, but I liked the school. It was much better than the one in Poland. The grades were of about twenty people unlike in Poland where there could be more than thirty. Also, there were a lot of computers for student’s use in the Senior Computer Room in my new school and there were internet connections on all the computers.
My new school didn’t help me to adapt to Cuba. My friends are the ones that helped me adapt. I started to care about my friends and spend time with them together rather than spend time thinking and complaining about Cuba. I got used to the climate in Cuba too. Later on I decided that Cuba wasn’t that dreadful at all. I learned a good lesson by the defining moment. I tech me that one decision can change your live for ever and that you can’t say that something is good or bad before you try it out.