Monday 22 December 2008

Twenty past six there, twenty past ten here

We arrived in the USA to the usual welcome from homeland security...us and all the other non-Americans, queueing ages to be allowed into the land of the free. So it was great to finally see Margaret here to collect us in the new family Honda bus!

The flight was a bit late out of the UK, but the good news was we got upgraded to Business Class (different class ;-) Fully reclining seats, loads of space, and the in flight entertainment was good too. Enjoyed listening to Elbow, Coldplay and The Script as well as watching a couple of films and doing the usual Independent sudoku. The fish pie was ok, and the service was impressive. The flight hardly seemed to last the 11 hours that it really did.

One thing that struck me at LAX was a total lack of anything that told you it was Christmas, but Margaret, Peter, Sarah and Samantha have more than made up for that with lots of festive decorations. There were no decoartions at the airport at all. And few that were visible on the drive down to Laguna Hills, but once we got amongst the houses, plenty were decorated with lights.

We are aiming to go to Knott's Berry Farm on Tuesday, which is a theme park, but we may cancel if it is still raining. It's not too bad, but a bit disappointing for the time of year. It promises to be better later in the week.

First time we visited the USA, in 1988, you felt totally out of touch with the rest of the planet. What a difference the internet has made. I just checked my e-mail, had a look at the BBC website, and read messages from familiar faces, which is nice. We also watched Sky Sports News at 5.00 yesterday (1.00 in the morning UK time) so we caught up with all the Sunday footy.

We spent Monday morning shopping in the mall at Irvine. We bought a few things to put under the tree, and had coffee sewrved by some grumpy girl who didn't say "you're welcome" or "have a nice day"...not even once.

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