Gord's American Adventure - Day 1

Well, here I am. Contrary to my suspicisons, America does actually exist, and is not just something made up for TV. The flight over from Sydney is really, really, really long and boring, and the novelty wears off after about an hour, leaving 12 and a half hours of boring, boring waiting. As soon as I sat down, my ass went to sleep, but sadly, that was not indicitive of the rest of me - I tossed and turned for 12 hours, and every time I closed my eyes, my brain would keep playing Sufjan Steven's Come On feel The Illinoise , which was driving me absolutley crazy.

(Did I mention that the flight is really, really long, and boring? well, re-read that sentence about seven hundred times to get a real insight into how boring and long it was.)

Eventually, we landed in a rainy, dsmal, and stinky Los Angles - it took me an hour to clear the customs, which menat that I wouldn't make my connecting fllight - lucky for me it was delayed by an hour and a half. LAX seems like this weird enormous human rat maze that was designed by some social scientist as a cruel joke. I got shuffled in and out of queues, had my passport requested four (4) different times, had to fill out three forms, and at one point had to pick up my luggage and wheel it about 10 metres down a hallway to give it to another baggagge handler.

Anyways, after that I ended up in the American Eagle terminal, waiting an hour for my flight to San Jose. The American Eagle terminal, in stark contrast to LAX Proper, felt like a tin shed - this was because it was largely a tin shed. I watched Alabma win the Cotton Bowl (I think) much to the delight of the people sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chairs beside me.

An hour and a slightly horrible sandwich later, I made the flight to San Jose, where Mikal collected me at the airport, and took me home to Mountain View. Boy was it nice to see a familiar face!

After a cup of tea, and ringing home to talk to my guys, and having fun with Andrew and Matthew, Stilly and I went on an adventure to the supermarket. Whew! There are so many weird and wonderful things to buy in this country. In the end, we bought stuff for Enchiladas (got the recipe from the packet) - and drank Coors while me made a disgusting mess of the kitchen. I was quite keen on buying the 1.8L bottle of Vodka for 15 dollars, but that was mainly becuase of the price than the necessity. As Mikal said, "there's a lot of pain to dull".

Besides, the kitchen would have been much, much worse if that was the case.

I collapsed on the couch at about 8:30, and now it's time to visit San Francisco, and visit the Googleplex for lunch, before heading to Washington DC tonight.

Hopefully I can also find a card for my camera, so I can get some photos online when I get a chance. You know how you always forget something? Well, I forgot my USB cable...