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Abdullah Alsanei
Professor Hymes
English113A
5 December 2015
San Francisco Roadtrip
Last December, I went to a conference, the National Union of Kuwaiti Students, this event
is organized by the Kuwaiti cultural office as reason for making all the Kuwaitis interact with
everyone. Every year it happens in a different city. This time, it was in San Francisco, California.
My friends and I decided that we wanted to go on a road trip instead of flying. The road trip was
7 hours long. We had snacks and listened to amazing music. I really loved everything that had
happened, and felt that it was really nice
I felt that I had a really good company with me and the persons that I travelled with were
really sweet. We were extremely tired when we first got there. We got to the hotel that they chose
for the conference, which was Marriott. The hotel was crowded with Kuwaiti students from all
over the United States. I had the chance to say hello to my friends that I had not seen in a very
long time. I was really excited to see that there were different Kuwaitis that had come from
different parts of the country to unite at one place and for having fun.
Our second day in San Francisco was actually the first day of the conference. My friends
and I attended a couple of events and then had a chance to go around the city and explore places.
The day after was the most important and entertaining day, which was the concert. They brought
two Saudi comedians to start the show and then the singers started performing, Fahad Al Kebaisy
and Marwa Ben Sghaier. There were many jokes that were cracked by the performer, and the
most favorite one for me was about how Arabs spend on their weddings, which was the most

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hilarious thing that I had heard. It was an event that had a completely different vibe and had a lot
towards the end to make memories. Everyone was waving the Kuwaiti flag and by the end of the
show. The singer performed a national song which got all of us on our feet, singing loudly with
pride.
The following day, we decided to explore the city more. The pier was our first choice so
we decided to eat lunch there as well. Everything was going perfectly fine until we finished
lunch. Once we got to the car, we saw that someone had broken into it and had stolen everything
there. My backpack was stolen along with my passport as well as my Rolex watch; I really got
upset because I didn't know what to do. We were really shocked on discovering that someone had
broken our car window and had stolen a few belongings. We got relieved on seeing a cop car and
we ran and reported the incident immediately. My watch was stolen and so was my passport.
These things were really special to me and especially the passport which was the only form of ID
that I had. I am an international student with an F-1 student visa. Without having my passport
and visa I could get into serious trouble with the U.S. immigration and generally visiting places.
This ruined my whole trip and left a bad memory of visiting San Francisco. What made it worse
was that we had to fix the window because we were going to hit the road back to LA soon.
I decided not to let this ruin my trip and just hoped to get a call back from the police to
get my passport back. My friends wanted to cheer me up so we went ice-skating outdoors. They
knew it was one of my favorite activities and once I stepped on the ice, I instantly knew how to
skate and remembered how I used to skate back in middle school. I was not sure if it was bad
luck or San Francisco was not the place for me, but the bad events kept coming. I fell hard on my
hip and couldnt move or walk. I could barely stand up on my feet. We rushed to the nearest
hospital and, of course, we waited in line for at least 45 minutes even though it was not crowded

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at all. Finally, the next day, after a long day we arrived at the hotel and prepared our stuff for the
road trip.
First thing in the morning, my brother and I picked up our friends and left San
Francisco. The fact that I lost my passport did not leave my head and the pictures of the passport
were running through my head. Once I arrived in Los Angeles, I contacted many people to
inform them about my passport problem. The biggest problem that occurred was that I had a
flight back to Kuwait coming up in a week and I did not have my passport yet. I did not know
whether I should go back or stay, because many people told me that if I do go back to Kuwait, I
would not be able to return to the States again. I went to the Kuwait Cultural Office in person to
inform them. In the middle of an argument, someone knocked on the door and said that they had
been notified that my passport has been found. The passport was found on the sidewalk and
someone was kind enough to take it to the police station. Everything seemed great again and I
could fly back to Kuwait to see my family and friends.
The moral of the story is that you should never throw your stuff and leave them
unprotected, even if the car is locked, because there are a lot of things that are unexpected that
could happen even if you are sure about it. This road trip gave me a few reasons to be careful and
at the same time helped me become a bit more protective about my things.