I hate planes, especially the ones that take 18 hours. The destination is the only thing that makes me not try to jump out. The destination is India.
I have never actually left the US before this flight. My dad is going on a business trip so I decided to tag along with my mom. Actually, I didn’t really decide, my parents decided for me. They decide everything for me. They think that just because I’m a 5” 1’ freshman in high school, I can’t make my own decisions. When I was younger, I wasn’t even allowed to decide what I wanted to wear to school. My parents would lay out my clothes on the floor and they decided what I wore to school every day.
“I’m going to the bathroom now”, I told my dad. He said” Ok, Will, I’ll go with you so you don’t get lost.” I didn’t want to yell at him on a plane for still treating me like a child, so I decided to walk away and let him follow me. Once I got back to my seat, the flight attendant came with her cart and approached me saying, “Mr. Carter, would you like anything to drink? We have fountain drinks, sodas, juice, and tea.”  Before I could respond, my mother told her, “He’ll take a glass of water”, and then smiled at me. Once we were in our second connection flight I slept for what felt like an eternity. When I woke up, we had landed in Delhi, India.
When I found out we were going to go to India, I was so excited because I have wanted to leave the country and travel very badly. I was not excited for the food, though. I tried Indian food a couple of weeks ago for the first time. My stomach hurt for a week straight, so I was not excited to see what will happen when I eat this food everyday.
My dad has been to India several times for business trips, so he knows the ropes really well. He told me a lot about India and what goes on there. He told me it was hot, but he never told me that the temperature stays over 100 degrees the entire summer. When we landed, it was 110 degrees and I was wearing pants and a sweatshirt because they always blast the AC on planes. Now we had to go clear customs and the wait was an hour in this insane heat. After we got our bags and started to walk to our taxi, there were people all around us asking to take their taxi or bus or rickshaw. I stopped every time someone spoke to us but my dad told me not to listen or talk to anyone. I noticed that they weren’t advertising their services to any Indian people, but only to us.  We finally got into our taxi after spending two hours at the airport and the taxi cab took us to our hotel.
Our hotel was very impressive; it looked like an Indian Palace. I was so exhilarated with our five star hotel, all I wanted to do was sleep because of the 11 and a half hour time difference. Even though it was 1pm in Delhi, it was 12:30 in the morning back at home in Boston, Massachusetts.
My dad insisted that we go out and our first stop was the India Gate, which is very monumental and beautiful. The traffic in India is insane though. Imagine the traffic at Times Square. Now multiply that by 5 and that’s the traffic in Delhi. We also went to the Lotus Temple, which was breathtaking.
All of the people really strike up my biggest fear, which is also my parent’s biggest fear, getting lost in a big city with a lot of people. My parents are so worried about this that they were holding my hand the whole time. If it were up to them, they would put me on a leash.
The things that you see in India are bizarre. You see people sleeping on the side of the road, beggars that will not leave you alone. Me, being a white person in India, which is a rare sighting, has not been easy. People just yell out white boy and I know that they are taking to me.
Finally, we got to go to our hotel and slept. We all just passed out, even with the huge time differential.
Our next day, we went to go see one of my dad’s friends who lives in Delhi. We went to his huge farm, which was very fun because they had a kid my age. We slept over at his farm and had to get our rest because we were going all the way to the Taj Mahal in Agra the very next day. We have a driver that is picking us up tomorrow and would take us on a tour to the Taj Mahal.
After we said goodbye to my dad’s friends, we met our taxi driver. He said to us, “ Get ready for your 5 hour journey to the Taj Mahal. In the car, I will give you all the background about the Taj Mahal. Here’s a tip though, try not to get lost.” My mom responded, “ Especially not you, William”, and she smiled at me. Our tour guide said to her, “ Don’t worry about it that, Mrs. Carter. I have everything under control.”
In the car, the tour guide said to us,” The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum located on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra. It was made in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife of three, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is believed to have been completed in 1653 at a cost at the time to be around 32 million Indian rupees, which now would be at 52.8 billion Indian rupees”. 
Once we finally got to the Taj Mahal, it was insanely beautiful and everything that the tour guide said really came to life. My mom stopped holding my hand and I said to her,” Finally, you let me go.” She said, “ Stay close”. I rolled my eyes and looked away. Something caught me eye and I walked towards it to get a closer look. My parents kept walking and I looked back and they weren’t there.
I looked around to see where they were but with what felt like a billion people, I couldn’t see anything. I could barely even see two feet ahead of me. I felt like crying. I was sweating even more than before. I called out, “ Mom, Dad, Mom, Where are you! I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean any of it.” I could feel people looking at me, but I didn’t care. A 50-year-old poor Indian man approached me and said, “Don’t worry son, I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.” I had no clue who this man was, so I ran away. I started to cry and realized that I really need my parents to hold my hold and baby me again.
I was running around and yelling my parent’s names. Just then, a man with drums approached me and saw that I was distraught and said,” White boy, why you mad?” I responded,” I lost my parents”. The man said,” Wanna play”. Even though I declined the offer, the man but the drums in my hands and started o teach me how to play. I was very timid to play because I was told not to talk to anyone or trust anyone in India by my dad.
I looked around and saw where I was. I am in India, so if I cant find my parents for a couple of hours, its fine. I realized that I need to enjoy where I am at this time. I looked up at the Taj Mahal and realized how privileged I am to be in such an amazing place. I should stop whining and enjoy my time
I took the drums and started to finally enjoy myself for the first time. I picked it up very quickly and I was smiling and playing. People even stopped to watch us play the drums. We even made some money!
I said to him, “Thank you for opening my eyes to worry less and enjoy more. After that event with the drums, I decided to go and talk to the beggars and help them out by just giving them someone to talk to. It felt so good to help someone.
After I helped the beggar, I felt like I got a whole new perception on life. Just then, I saw my parents and I saw their crying faces. I went over to them, hugged them, and said, “ Thank you for everything you have done. Thank your for babying me. Thank you for holding my hand.” My dad said to me, “ I love you, son! Now lets go enjoy the rest of our trip”.
The rest of the trip went much better. When we got home, I told my dad that I had such a great time and I want to go back next summer. My dad said,” I trust you a lot more now and you can have more independence, I have learned to trust your decisions.”
I’m really glad that I went on this trip because I learned so much. I hope I can go back next year. I also hope that I do get lost.