Dad drove me down to the station with mum. I said my goodbyes to them and caught the 10am train to Gatwick via Lewes.
I had 2x luggages with me but it's actually really easy moving them as each case has 4 wheels. I think the difficult thing is rather my backpack which now houses two pairs of jeans. I had to move them out of one of my cases as it went over 20kg's.
Anyway, directly out of the doors that connect the train st hallway to Gatwicks south terminal is the Norwegian Air check in desk. I decided to walk directly in the queue. I had no issues getting my boarding pass. The guy just asked me what visa I had and just scanned in the J2 visa attached to my passport.
After I was free of my cases I visited the sandwich bar upstairs to eat a bacon and egg muffin with my final taste of HP Sauce :'(
After that I was bored so I visited Cafe Nero for my final goats cheese sandwich with beetroot relish. Damn that thing is tasty.
I had an interesting time through customs. They got worried about a thing in my backpack. They couldn't work out what the hell they were looking at on their screen, then asked me if I had any electronics in my bag. I said to them that they could open it if they wanted too. However they didn't want too. After a few minutes of 3 people staring at the x ray scan they swivelled the screen to me to see if i knew what it was they were talking about. It was my riser they they were worried about! Lol. I got it out of my bag and showed them that it's just a stand for my laptop. They even used the detector on it just in case it had electronic parts on it. Lastly because of curiosity i think, they got me to unfold it. They realised then it wasn't going to pose a risk and sent me on my way. Lol. Aye yai yai.
Next was the boring duty free section that you are obliged to walst through. Not interested.
I visited Boots to get 2x meal deals as my evening dinner. The Norwegian Air flight is a long distance budget airline so no frills. Even though I did get a dinner on the plane later.
I had a huge whatsapp conversation with Sabine and Alex when I was at my gate, continuing it on the plane right through the half hour delays. It was suppose to take off at 2.10pm but actually was on the runway starting to take off at 3pm.
I played with the flight tracker program on the entertainment screen. Its powered by android its just like using a smartphone. Well actually it's more like a tablet stuck on the seat in front of you. No frills! But it does the job quite nicely.
I flew over Wales and used the flight tracker app to work out what i was staring at. Next was Ireland which looked nice with lots of dotted lakes everywhere.
I could even make out The Isle of Man using the program and a little bit of guesswork.
When we were firmly within the boundaries of the atlantic I watched an episode of Animaniacs and watched Austin Powers Goldmember. I've never seen this third film until now.
I'm now flying over Greenland typing this diary entry. There's just a blanket of white cloud outside. I wanna see the snow! Oh. . wait…
At some point soon i'm going to have to say i'm not travelling north anymore, but rather going south into canada.
I wanna eat but the lady next to me is really interested in her film. Damn it it's 7pm UK time and i'm hungry. Probably going Hangry soon too!
Ahh Greenland it was nice to have seen you. Or in this case, not. Booo.
Now we are back over water and it's still a blanket of white cloud.
Oh, As I said earlier, my food was served to me when I was watching Goldmember. I wasnt expecting anything. It was quite a nice chicken dish.
Ok it's time to write my Farewell England blog post now.
After writing that I slept for a bit. It's now 10pm UK time and I'm about to eat. I have a free seat next to me which I will use for diving into my goodies from Boots.
Yum, I ate a weird club sandwich that I assumed was 3 in a pack but actually 2. 'Smoked egg and ham club' is what it was called. Would have helped had I read what it was.
Ok its 10.26pm, its 2.26pm in LA. What shall I do now... There is still 3 hours to go… maybe sleep some more?
Looking out the window has been fun. I saw lots of snow and ice when the clouds cleared, then lots of squares as I flew over Canada. USA now, and again lots of squares. Flying over North Dakota and now in Montana.
I saw the rocky mountains and as I type this i'm staring out at the Great Salt Lake.
I'm not so sure I ordered my flight as budget? I got a meal earlier as I said, and then they got me a chicken wrap just now with a cup of tea. The lady next to me hasn't been given anything. She just orders stuff from the android entertainment screen. Hu.
I had a brief talk with her when first getting on the plane. She lives in Hawaii and was just visiting England. Lucky her.
Touchdown at 1.28am, otherwise known as 5.28pm local time.
I had a 2.5 hour flight lol.
I had 2x luggages with me but it's actually really easy moving them as each case has 4 wheels. I think the difficult thing is rather my backpack which now houses two pairs of jeans. I had to move them out of one of my cases as it went over 20kg's.
Anyway, directly out of the doors that connect the train st hallway to Gatwicks south terminal is the Norwegian Air check in desk. I decided to walk directly in the queue. I had no issues getting my boarding pass. The guy just asked me what visa I had and just scanned in the J2 visa attached to my passport.
After I was free of my cases I visited the sandwich bar upstairs to eat a bacon and egg muffin with my final taste of HP Sauce :'(
After that I was bored so I visited Cafe Nero for my final goats cheese sandwich with beetroot relish. Damn that thing is tasty.
I had an interesting time through customs. They got worried about a thing in my backpack. They couldn't work out what the hell they were looking at on their screen, then asked me if I had any electronics in my bag. I said to them that they could open it if they wanted too. However they didn't want too. After a few minutes of 3 people staring at the x ray scan they swivelled the screen to me to see if i knew what it was they were talking about. It was my riser they they were worried about! Lol. I got it out of my bag and showed them that it's just a stand for my laptop. They even used the detector on it just in case it had electronic parts on it. Lastly because of curiosity i think, they got me to unfold it. They realised then it wasn't going to pose a risk and sent me on my way. Lol. Aye yai yai.
Next was the boring duty free section that you are obliged to walst through. Not interested.
I visited Boots to get 2x meal deals as my evening dinner. The Norwegian Air flight is a long distance budget airline so no frills. Even though I did get a dinner on the plane later.
I had a huge whatsapp conversation with Sabine and Alex when I was at my gate, continuing it on the plane right through the half hour delays. It was suppose to take off at 2.10pm but actually was on the runway starting to take off at 3pm.
I played with the flight tracker program on the entertainment screen. Its powered by android its just like using a smartphone. Well actually it's more like a tablet stuck on the seat in front of you. No frills! But it does the job quite nicely.
I flew over Wales and used the flight tracker app to work out what i was staring at. Next was Ireland which looked nice with lots of dotted lakes everywhere.
I could even make out The Isle of Man using the program and a little bit of guesswork.
When we were firmly within the boundaries of the atlantic I watched an episode of Animaniacs and watched Austin Powers Goldmember. I've never seen this third film until now.
I'm now flying over Greenland typing this diary entry. There's just a blanket of white cloud outside. I wanna see the snow! Oh. . wait…
At some point soon i'm going to have to say i'm not travelling north anymore, but rather going south into canada.
I wanna eat but the lady next to me is really interested in her film. Damn it it's 7pm UK time and i'm hungry. Probably going Hangry soon too!
Ahh Greenland it was nice to have seen you. Or in this case, not. Booo.
Now we are back over water and it's still a blanket of white cloud.
Oh, As I said earlier, my food was served to me when I was watching Goldmember. I wasnt expecting anything. It was quite a nice chicken dish.
Ok it's time to write my Farewell England blog post now.
After writing that I slept for a bit. It's now 10pm UK time and I'm about to eat. I have a free seat next to me which I will use for diving into my goodies from Boots.
Yum, I ate a weird club sandwich that I assumed was 3 in a pack but actually 2. 'Smoked egg and ham club' is what it was called. Would have helped had I read what it was.
Ok its 10.26pm, its 2.26pm in LA. What shall I do now... There is still 3 hours to go… maybe sleep some more?
Looking out the window has been fun. I saw lots of snow and ice when the clouds cleared, then lots of squares as I flew over Canada. USA now, and again lots of squares. Flying over North Dakota and now in Montana.
I saw the rocky mountains and as I type this i'm staring out at the Great Salt Lake.
I'm not so sure I ordered my flight as budget? I got a meal earlier as I said, and then they got me a chicken wrap just now with a cup of tea. The lady next to me hasn't been given anything. She just orders stuff from the android entertainment screen. Hu.
I had a brief talk with her when first getting on the plane. She lives in Hawaii and was just visiting England. Lucky her.
Touchdown at 1.28am, otherwise known as 5.28pm local time.
I had a 2.5 hour flight lol.
LA is warm. Before picking up my luggages, everyone was directed to customs. I had to wait in a huge queue for a while before seeing the bloke who wanted to see a few of my papers and asked about my wife. Then I was in to collect my 2 cases that were waiting on the stopped conveyer belt.
Out into the world was bewildering. I asked a lady and she directed me to the information desk at the other side of the arrivals area.
I asked the guy at the desk about where to go for a good service to Irvine. I was thinking beforehand that Uber would be ideal. However this guy instantly said 'Super Shuttle' and pointed outside to follow the orange signs. I did that. There was a lady I spoke to at super shuttle who explained it would be $51 to get to Irvine. They do this service as a shared taxi idea.
I'm now in this huge mini bus type taxi, driving through the streets of LA. The environments are actually surprisingly very easy to describe what it's like. It's exactly like GTA 5, including that sunny haze that you get in the game.
Before I got into this taxi though I got the WiFi working and managed to have a quick messenger chat with Sabine. I also got the offline map 'HERE WeGo" to work with my GPS.
I shared the super shuttle with two other people who also wanted to go to Irvine. The trip by car took over an hour without any traffic jams.
It was around 9.30pm when the taxi pulled up close to my AirBnB for this evening. Though he circled around it for ages without finding the exact address. I told the driver not to worry and that I would search for it using the Here WeGo app. I got my things, paid him his $51 and used the app to walk deep into the apartment complex. I struggled finding it myself. I knew I was in the right area but there were no clear signs. Outside it was pitch black, yet warm. I walked by a fountain surrounded by apartment flats and saw a guy just relaxing on a bench. I asked him if he knew the flat number. He didn't, but he checked it out on google maps and pointed to one directly opposite to us. It was the correct flat! I was so relieved! I went over to this ground floor flat and rang the doorbell.... I waited and rung again…. No answer. I rung again and again… nothing.
The guy sitting on the bench could clearly see that I was not getting anywhere. He walked over and offered his help, including letting me use his phone to log into Airbnb and finding this woman's phone number. I used this guys phone to ring the owner. She answered and was very nonchalant about her not being there. She described what I had to do in the pitch black to find her spare keys, which I did after some hassle. And she said she would be back in about an hour. Oookayyy?
She described which was my room. It is basically the mattress in the living room with sheets and nice pillows. Fair enough. She also told me in an airy fairy way that there wasn't any toilet paper. WHAT! Again, lucky I brought some. What she didn't say after hanging up and thanking the guy for his phone that other things were missing too in the flat, like basic soap, shampoo and towels.
I had to use all of my own. I hated the shower as it was fixed to the wall but still, I coped. Not a problem. After my shower I ate my remaining meal deal and drunk the rest of my water. Actually I think I ate before my shower. But whatever. The lady arrived back sometime later and actually she was a really nice person. She sorted out the towels (errr too late?!) And still didn't replace the empty toilet paper. Weird.
She got me sorted for internet access but it was far far too late to chat with Sabine. I eventually got to sleep at around 11pm. It's a really comfortable bed. I had to go to the loo twice in the night. The second time I was awake I couldn't sleep. Thinking it was early morning I thought I did well. NOPE! IT'S ONLY 2.30AM!
I wrote and published the remaining parts of these two diary entries instead of sleeping. I'm too awake.
I have had no more than 4 hours sleep total since seaford.
I'm about to publish this post then try for more sleep. The time now is 3.47am.
Out into the world was bewildering. I asked a lady and she directed me to the information desk at the other side of the arrivals area.
I asked the guy at the desk about where to go for a good service to Irvine. I was thinking beforehand that Uber would be ideal. However this guy instantly said 'Super Shuttle' and pointed outside to follow the orange signs. I did that. There was a lady I spoke to at super shuttle who explained it would be $51 to get to Irvine. They do this service as a shared taxi idea.
I'm now in this huge mini bus type taxi, driving through the streets of LA. The environments are actually surprisingly very easy to describe what it's like. It's exactly like GTA 5, including that sunny haze that you get in the game.
Before I got into this taxi though I got the WiFi working and managed to have a quick messenger chat with Sabine. I also got the offline map 'HERE WeGo" to work with my GPS.
I shared the super shuttle with two other people who also wanted to go to Irvine. The trip by car took over an hour without any traffic jams.
It was around 9.30pm when the taxi pulled up close to my AirBnB for this evening. Though he circled around it for ages without finding the exact address. I told the driver not to worry and that I would search for it using the Here WeGo app. I got my things, paid him his $51 and used the app to walk deep into the apartment complex. I struggled finding it myself. I knew I was in the right area but there were no clear signs. Outside it was pitch black, yet warm. I walked by a fountain surrounded by apartment flats and saw a guy just relaxing on a bench. I asked him if he knew the flat number. He didn't, but he checked it out on google maps and pointed to one directly opposite to us. It was the correct flat! I was so relieved! I went over to this ground floor flat and rang the doorbell.... I waited and rung again…. No answer. I rung again and again… nothing.
The guy sitting on the bench could clearly see that I was not getting anywhere. He walked over and offered his help, including letting me use his phone to log into Airbnb and finding this woman's phone number. I used this guys phone to ring the owner. She answered and was very nonchalant about her not being there. She described what I had to do in the pitch black to find her spare keys, which I did after some hassle. And she said she would be back in about an hour. Oookayyy?
She described which was my room. It is basically the mattress in the living room with sheets and nice pillows. Fair enough. She also told me in an airy fairy way that there wasn't any toilet paper. WHAT! Again, lucky I brought some. What she didn't say after hanging up and thanking the guy for his phone that other things were missing too in the flat, like basic soap, shampoo and towels.
I had to use all of my own. I hated the shower as it was fixed to the wall but still, I coped. Not a problem. After my shower I ate my remaining meal deal and drunk the rest of my water. Actually I think I ate before my shower. But whatever. The lady arrived back sometime later and actually she was a really nice person. She sorted out the towels (errr too late?!) And still didn't replace the empty toilet paper. Weird.
She got me sorted for internet access but it was far far too late to chat with Sabine. I eventually got to sleep at around 11pm. It's a really comfortable bed. I had to go to the loo twice in the night. The second time I was awake I couldn't sleep. Thinking it was early morning I thought I did well. NOPE! IT'S ONLY 2.30AM!
I wrote and published the remaining parts of these two diary entries instead of sleeping. I'm too awake.
I have had no more than 4 hours sleep total since seaford.
I'm about to publish this post then try for more sleep. The time now is 3.47am.
 |
| At Gatwick |
 |
| Ice over north Canada |
 |
| Arriving into LA |
 |
| Mallards! In America! |
 |
| A purple tree......In America! |
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| The apartment complex where the lady lives |
 |
| No Toilet Roll?! Why? |
 |
| My bed for the first day |
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