Chapter 1: The one with the Visa issues, gonna need tissues

     I have never been able to sleep well the night before a big trip. My mind races with tasks that are not yet accomplished and I end up spending the night worrying about all the different ways the trip will go wrong. Jitters...man I hate them. Turns out that this time around the jitters were completely justified: I messed up in a bad way.
My flight to Ho Chi Minh was supposed to leave on Saturday, January 16 at 3:30 PM.  I arrived at JFK at 1 PM and found myself at the back of a very long queue at the China Eastern Airlines check in desk. Naturally, since I am a millenial, I used this opportunity to pull out my external brain and started texting my family and friends. Everybody was really excited for me and I was beginning to get really psyched for the trip. My mother was of course terrified and was really hoping that I would just cancel the trip and stay home. She almost got her wish.
     It started with an innocent text from my sister, Khatija. "Got everything in order? Visa all set to go?" I had a pretty good laugh at that, of course I was ready, I AM BORN TO TRAVEL! But what did she say about that visa? I sent her a quick message and asked if she was joking about the Visa.
     NOPE.
     I had read online that Vietnam had Visa on arrival, meaning I did not have to do anything in advance. Turns out that I was completely wrong. As my sister explained to me, Visa on arrival only meant that the visa would be processed once you got to Vietnam but in order to get processed, you needed a Visa pre-approval BEFORE you got there.
     I was DEVASTATED! It was 2 PM by this point, which meant that it was 2 AM on a sunday in Vietnam and no government office was open. I briefly contemplated getting on the flight and just figuring it out as I went but the airline advised heavily against it. Apparently Vietnam has no problem deporting you the moment you land and it has been known to happen on a very regular basis. I begrudgingly called up the people at Chase (since I had booked the flight via credit card points) and they set me up for a flight that departed in three days, on the 19th.
     To say that my trip back to Manhattan was depressing would be an understatement. There was a distinct gray tinge in the air and I felt terrible in every way imaginable. How could I be so stupid? Who in their right mind forgets to get a visa? Is this a center for ants??? All these questions and more kept boring into my mind as I rode the A train out of Queens and into Manhattan. The circuitous route that the train took felt like a great metaphor for the way this trip had gone so far...and I wasnt even out of the country yet!
     The day after I was rejected at the airport it started snowing in Manhattan. Instantaneously the city transformed into a magical snowglobe and my sadness seemed to whisk away. I felt compelled to walk/dance my way through the perfect snowy central park landscape and arrived unscripted at the gift shop at the Tavern on the Green. My hands were freezing and it seemed as good a place as any to warm up. The cashier at the gift shop saw my snow covered outline and let out a good laugh, he knew I wasnt there to buy anything but welcomed the company. Through the course of our conversation, I brought up my visa bungle and he gave me his sincerest condolences. As our conversation kept going he became more and more apologetic towards me and it was then that I realized that I was done being upset about this.
     The whole episode got me to thinking about how unplanned my journey into medicine has been and thus far things have somehow figured themselves out. I should have gone straight from college into medical school, but I decided to try my hand at selling cars first. Once I got into medical school I was convinced that surgery was the way to go and I did everything humanly possible to get myself into it....only to back out at the last moment and commit to internal medicine. Within internal medicine, I knew that cardiology was my destiny yet I found myself gleefully applying for pulmonary and critical care. And here I am, ready to start fellowship in 5 short months and the thing I am looking forward to the most is what unexpected turn I will take next.
     I returned to the airport on January 19th and this time I was prepared. The flights were uneventful and before I knew it I had arrived in Saigon. I reflected on the wierd detour that I took to get here and realized that at least I got to experience a proper winter in the city, who knows, it might not snow again for a long long time. But the past is the past, lets have some fun in Vietnam!