slycat | California 2008: Day 1

So to recap on the day's events so far, I got up at around 4am after a fairly uneasy sleep due to a mix of excitement and anxiety. I had everything prepared from the night before so it was just a matter of waiting for the taxi to arrive and get to the coach station. The coach journey got quite badly delayed due to congeston on the M3 meaning we got there about 40mins late. However I wasn't too bothered as my arrangements had made me due to be 4 hours in advance of my flight anyway. Lines for check in were non-existant, as were the queues for security, leaving me with far too much time in the duty free area beyond security. I was able to pick up a few essential purchases and grab breakfast but still had too much time. Ended up playing Peggle on the laptop out of boredom. The second the gate was announced, I upped and left for my departure gate and ended up being the first there, only to be greated by a full body padding down and my bags being swabbed. I've never had that done before, I don't know if it was just AA that do it but they seemed to be doing it for a number of the people arriving at the gate. Already I was thinking "Welcome to America, where we treat everyone as a potential terrorist".

Anyway, the flight itself was long and for the most part, dull. Fortunately, the South African I was sat next to didn't need to get up for the toilet or anything at all which was good. I couldn't get to sleep as always so I made the most of what I had by watching The Nines, The Bucket List, an episode of Family Guy and Sarah Connor Chornicles on my PMP before the batteries died (I had been using it as a MP3 player on the trip in, and the car charger thing didn't seem to work), also playing random games on the PSP and DS. However even that wasn't enough to make the 10 hour flight pass any quicker. The food was ok, being some sort of chicken and pasta dish, later followed by a mini pizza.

Arrived 40mins early at LA. The queues at immigration were short, and I didn't get interrogated much beyond the purpose of my visit. However even after collecting my baggage, I was much earlier than I had expected, meaning I had to wait around for Hunter to battle through Martin Luther King Day traffic to et to the airport. Once picked up, we called by a Subway on the way to his apartment befoe going out again to wander around a local mall (Got Sobes :)), supermarket and Best Buy. Now back at the apartment watching new Prison Break and Sarah Connor Chronicles before bed. Tomorrow,