The U.S.

Well I’m working in the US for a few weeks.  I’ve been out here before for work so I’ve got a rough idea of what goes on and how to get about.

 

Things were not looking good though from as early on as Heathrow 😦 I went for the ‘Fast’ bag drop as it always seems to be the easiest way to go, besides the Q’s at terminal 4 were massive.  Unfortunately the fast bag drop was sloooooooow.  I’m utterly sure that the slowness was caused by people who had not checked in and were just ignorant or blind, maybe both.  One of the very helpful BA staff walked down the line to make sure that we’d checked in, two guys in front of me who were together answered that they were checked in.  Later on a few of the BA staff tried to speed things up by getting baggage stickers for everyone in the Q, the two guys in front of me had not checked in at all and so the poor guy from BA had to go and check them in as well as sorting out their baggage stickers.  I eventually got through and with a free upgrade to business class for some reason.

 

Business class, what can I say but WOW!

 

So the nine and a half hour flight was quite comfortable and got into Sea-Tac airport feeling OK.  Very quickly through passport control, fantastic going from the guys who work there it was much less painful than before even if you did have to have your fingers scanned and a photo taken.

 

Baggage grabbed, although I missed it the first time round the carousel.  I have borrowed a suitcase and so didn’t recognise it  Got the hire car, and after a few false starts with the automatic and trying to remember how to get it into gear – you have to have the foot brake on, DOH! – I was off.

 

I’m staying in an apartment and so had to go and collect the keys, found the apartment although I ended up doing a few circuits of the ‘block’ to find the underground parking.  One last hurdle I couldn’t unlock the apartment door.  Eventually I had to ring the emergency helpline and they were just about to send someone out to help me when I worked out what I was doing wrong.

 

Finally sorted, it was time to crash out and see if the jet lag kicked in and tried to wake me up at two o’clock in the morning – which it did, but not for long.