Flight was good, smooth and rather boring. Watched 2 movies, (National Treasure: Book of Secrets - Awful film! No Country For Old Men - Not the best film to watch while on the way to Texas!), ate two meals (one half an hour after take off, one 7.5 hours later just before landing!), got hungry and eat lots of fun size chocolate bars and drank lots of tiny cans of coke and sprite, listened to IPOD and read magazines and books. At least the seat turned out to be good... lots of leg room. What a way to spend 9 hours!
On arrival walked for miles through air conditioned corridors to US customs where I queued for half an hour. The primary purpose of the queue seemed to be to make sure you watched the chirpy 'America is great' video on loop displayed above the customs booths at least twice. I imagine this is a terrorist prevention measure to make you feel guilty in case you'd been lying when you ticked the 'I am not a terrorist' box on the immigration form! No pat downs or rubber glove action at the customs post, just a full set of finger prints and a photo, then off to the baggage carousel for another 30 minute wait for my bags, which arrived intact (thank you terminal 4!).
Finally left the air port an hour after getting off the plane to a wall of heat - apparently it's 'cold' at the moment! Found out the hire cars were a 15 minute buss ride away, which is great if you have two fully loaded kit bags and maximum hand luggage! Then another half hour queue at the Avis desk to pick up my car. Annoyingly all the other rental desks were queueless, although I'll take that as a good sign. Available car not the Chevrolet Impala which I was expecting, but a white Hyundai Sonata. Avis rep shocked that I didn't want to upgrade my 'import' model for a US car for only $19 per day.
Found the car 10 minutes walk away next to a long line of rental Hummers, (no wonder the world is running out of oil!). Spent 10 minutes figuring out how to make the thing go (automatic) then got on the road and drove 45 minutes to a restaurant to meet Greg. Had a proper American steak, then drove 30 minutes to the boat and tried to sleep.
Departure from Whitstable: 0745 UK time (0145 Houston time), arrival at Kemar Marina: 2230 Houston time (0430 UK time). Very long day. First impressions of the US: It's big. Very big.
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