US Trip

HNMUN 2012
Hi, I would to tell my HNMUN 2012 story. It was very interesting, awesome, and special moment for me.
11 February 2012
For the beginning, there was something bad happened. I with my friends : Marvin, Lona, and Trissa would take travel to Jakarta Airport from Bandung meanwhile my other friends were dropped by their parents in the Airport. We should take taxi on 2 pm because we took the travel on 3 pm and the bad news was the taxi that I had booked wasn’t going and they said there weren’t any taxi available. Sh*t, I had booked the taxi on 10 am before and on 1:50 pm the operator called me and said there were any taxi. Short story, we used public car aka ‘angkot’ to go to the pool and the time was shown 2:40 pm and we were late and the travel had departed. Fortunely we could reserve for one car directly to go Jakarta Airport.
We arrived at the airport around 6:30 pm and our flight is 23:50 pm local time. We looked for our friend – Vinsensius who had been arrived at airport very early,3 pm. He was afraid that the travel was late arrived at the airport since the last week there was labour demo and Bdg-Jkt highway was closed. We had our dinner first until waited for the others.
At 10:30 pm, we checked-in. We were using Qatar airways : JKT-Doha-JFK. At 23:50 pm the plane departed and it took around 4-5 hours to arrive at Doha. People said that today Qatar airways is one of the best highest class airlines in the world; for me Qatar is very nice, with quite comfortable seat, with many kinds of entertainments (movie, music, television, and many more), but I had problems with the food. The food wasn’t so delicious, maybe they provided it for foreign-western people who has the flight back to Doha or US.
After arrived at Doha, We moved to other airport waiting room for transit. I passed the road when transit into other waiting room. I just saw small part of Doha, but I though it was very nice country with oil as their core business. I also saw the small desert beside the road. We just stopped around 2 hours to wait for the next flight Doha-JFK.
Doha-JFK took around 8-9 hours flight. The longest flight I ever had; in total around 14-15 hours flight from Indonesia. I still did the same things in the flight : sleep, eat, watch movie, sleep again, wake up, eat, and watch movie until it arrived at JFK. Before arrived at JFK, I still worried a bit about my plan in US. I worried that the immigration would ask difficult and weird questions because I was the only one who had the longest trip until 15th April. When we arrived at JFK airport; in immigration – all were gone on well and smooth. Really thanks God, we didn’t face anything and I could spent my holiday and trip with free. We arrived around at 4 pm local time.
After finished getting our lagguages, we were waiting for the bus which would drop US into the NYC because we would continue our trip directly by Mega Bus to Boston that took around 4-5 hours trips again. We looked for dinner first, for my first dinner in US, I had “Taco Bell’ – Mexico Food, not really very delicious for me. FYI, the foods in US are really expensive; we can spent at least 5 dollar for our lunch or dinner – usually is 8 dollar. (In Indonesia, I usually spent around Rp 8.000-Rp 15.000 ($1-2) for usuall lunch or dinner; for $5-8 foods – it is very fine-dining restaurant in Indonesia).
1 more interesting story for the first day when we arrived at US was when we are waiting for the mega bus. We were waiting around 1 hour until 8 pm to depart to Boston. The weather was really very cold for me for the first time. D*am freeking freezing. Hahaha. We arrived at Boston around 1 or 2 pm, we lived at Double Tree Bay Side Hotel by Hilton. It was very nice hotels, I did really love it. The room was very large enough for 3 people, and it was near beach. I do love beach but a bit far away for the center of town. We stayed 3 days 2 nights there before moved to Boston Park Plaza Hotel for HNMUN 2012 conference.
Day 2
In the morning, I didn’t do anything because I stayed in the hotel until noon to accompany my friend, the head del – Della. Here was a problem about the hotel where we stayed, actually it was not a big problem, just about the payment/credit card. In the noon, we went to MIT. We had already appointment with the MIT student to take campus tour in MIT. MIT is very nice university, especially for its technic major. The building is also very nice, very big and comfort – very integrated university, with many facilities to support its students. You donot need to go anywhere outside MIT complex to find for daily needs because everything are provided around the campus. We had the tour until mid noon and after that we had free time. We also crossed the harvard bridge, it was very very long bridge and we walked across it!
For your information, the transportation is very easy to use. Boston has subway, it is similiar MRT in Singapore. Then we went to Newsbury & Bollyston street, there are many shops there and in here, I just bought my new gadget. Hahaha.... Then there was prudential building – mall near there. We spent our time until night at there then we went back to the hotel.
Day 3
It was one of the great moment, going to Harvard!!!! HARVARD! The best or second one (Harvard/Cambridge?) university in the world! I couldn’t stand to visit Harvard but unfortunely We didn’t get the guidance, so we just walked by ourselves. It is really really very nice university; still wondering that could i get my master degree in Harvard? HOPE SO!!! But at least I can continue my master degree in aussie/europe/us by scholarship! Wish me luck.:)
We also visited the Coop, the official story that sell Harvard & MIT apparells, stationery, and etc; but they were very very expensive because of the name, especially for Harvards’. The cheapest hoddie are around $30 and up to $60. I never buy anything (apparell : shirts, collar shirts, or jeans more than $25) but in the Coop I bought $60 dollar hoddiee.... T.T So expensive but once in life time.
Day 4
It was the most bad day for me, it was the first time i was very mad because I had already prepared, ready to go at 9:20 am and must wait the others until 11:20 am. Really wasting time. It was the last day we stayed in Double Tree Hotel by Hilton before we moved to Boston Park Plaza Hotel where the conference held. Around 3 pm we moved to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. When we arrived, there were many other delegates from other countries had arrived in the hotel. The atmosfer was really scary, meet with other delegates that came from different universities, and most of them were from west country; with really adequate english conversation I and my friends tried to start small conversation; introduction from where we were, what committee we were in. As a start it was not so bad as I think. Everything were under control for the starting.:)
Day 5 – First 1 HNMUN 2012
Eeng Ing Engg,,, and it was the first day of the conference & competition – Harvard National Model United Nations 2012 after 3 months training. We did get up really to have preparation. We wanted to perform perfectly and the best. We all dressed in blue collar shirt and pants or skirts. Around 10 am, we started to downstair to begin lobbying each others, because the official opening ceremony was at 3pm.
For the opening ceremony, it was really very great and awesome. Around 3000 people and more were gathered in the main hall. Every delegates bring their own attributes what ever it was (flag, pins, or anythings related to the country their represents), they also yelled each others. The conference opened with short introduction video from the committee and short lecture from Harvard Prof until around at 5 pm. The first session of HNMUN 2012 began at 7 pm at that night.

The first session.
I arrived at the hall – Baecon hills; I remembered it well around 6:40 pm to meet the other delegates to have alliance. In the first session, I still optimist that I could handle the committee. I raised my plank card several times and speak twice in front of other delegates. For the first session, we set the motion first, other delegate introduced topic A first in the floor. I did really prefer topic B because I learned it more than the first topic A. The topic B is about the international trade related to climate change and the topic A is about financial crisis. I had persued the others to choose the topic B and for the first voting session the topic A wasn’t pass but other delegate repurposed to vote again topic A and the topic A was pass with 2/3 majority. Shitt!!!! I couldn’t control the committee anymore because I didn’t very familiar the the topic A and I didn’t do any depth research about topic A and they talked about FTT during the session. Really big big no!!!