America part one

Monday 10th August 2009

10.35am
Well we’re still sitting in Lester B Pearson Airport Toronto when we should’ve been up in the air for exactly an hour now! Oh, we’ve just had an announcement that we’ll hopefully be boarding soon – for the 2nd time!

11.15am
Hooray we’re in the air!! We boarded at about 10.40 and we actually got up into the air about 10 minutes ago. What I didn’t expect is that we’ve got a complimentary drinks and snacks service on board! We took the snacks each but when but when we looked at them they are “Lemon Chilli Con Sticks” we can give them to Pat & Frank – frank will probably eat them even if Pat doesn’t want them.

Last night we decided we didn’t want showers this morning cos we’d have to get up at about 5am – 5.30 is plenty early enough!!

I found my alarm clock when I got up this morning cos it was in the cosmetics bag I’ve got with all my hair bobbles and stuff in – what a stupid place to put it!!

For breakfast I had a banana, a beef butty from yesterday’s roast and a ham butty to finish off the meat we bought the other day. Mum had a normal breakfast – toast with jam.

Doug arrived for us at about 6.55 and took us to the airport – we had a nice uneventful journey to the airport – it was after that the ‘fun’ started!!!

First of all we had to find the right queue and it turns out that all the USA flights join the same queue – which was about 6 miles long!! We eventually found the back and joined the line. A staff member was there and asked us what time our flight was – when we said 9.35 (as we thought it would be!) he simply nodded in acknowledgement so we figured he must know we’d get through in time. Thankfully the queue seemed to move pretty quickly (initially anyway)! When we got nearer to the front the staff were calling flight times to come forward in the queue so that they wouldn’t miss the closing time of their flight.

While we were waiting in the line we noticed people filling in blue forms so we asked the people behind us what were they and did we have to do them too. She said they were customs forms and yes we needed to fill them in before we went through customs. As we went along a bit further I saw a pile of blue forms on top of a computer terminal so I picked up 2 and we filled one in while standing in the queue – you only need 1 form per family.

Eventually we got through check-in but we had to keep our suitcase and take it with us. We then joined another queue to be given a green visa waiver form to fill in but we weren’t told to fill them in there and then. The next stage was an ‘interview’ with a USA customs official. When we got to the front of that queue he said our green forms needed to be filled in before he could process us. He told us to go back to the front of the queue area and do the forms before approaching the desk again. The forms were so involved – including address AND phone number of where you’re staying in America.

Once we’d filled them in we went back to the desk to be grilled – duration of stay, purpose of stay, digital fingerprints, and photos – without glasses, any gifts for the US. THEN we finally got rid of our suitcase and had to go through the x-ray with hand luggage and all of us had to take our shoes off, not just if you got beeped through the metal detector like happened on the way to Canada.

We were then finally able to find out if we had a gate number to go to – 264! When I looked at the board I discovered we actually had to get a bus to get to our gate – and time was marching on! Thankfully we didn’t wait too long for the bus then it was a long journey to the other side of the airport. The place we ended up in we’d already seen from the road when Doug brought us in this morning. We got to the gate with about 20 minutes before take-off (or so we thought). We’d only been there about 5-10 minutes before they started boarding.

We had to go out on the tarmac to board the plane and it’s a teeny weeny one! I counted and there’s only 36 passenger seats in total! We were sitting for a while when the pilot came on over the tannoy – he was apologising that there would be a slight delay because we had no ground crew yet and the bags hadn’t come over yet either. Because of yesterday’s storm a lot of flights were cancelled so there were extra flights on today.

We sat there, and sat there, and sat there – getting hotter and hotter all the time. The bags arrived but they still didn’t get loaded onto the plane yet. People were getting too hot so they were going to stand outside where there was a nice breeze. I didn’t actually go outside but I asked the lady for a cup of ice and then I just stood at the top of the steps. While I was standing there a lady came up to ask the flight attendant about connecting flights cos she only had a short layover time between flights and we were getting later and later.

When I’d been at the top of the steps for a few minutes we were all told to go and collect our belongings and go back into the building. Initially we weren’t being allowed back into the building properly, just the corridor we’d come through to get to the plane. The flight attendant on our plane seemed quite exasperated at this si she went in and got us permission to go back into the gate lounge area.

Since we were inside I decided to go and find the proper toilets and ten when I came back I suggested to my mum that we eat the fruit we’d brought to snack on, especially as we had access to proper rubbish bins so we wouldn’t have to carry the skins with us.

There was one man on the plane with us and he was pacing backwards and forwards all the time in the lounge area and really getting on our nerves. I overheard him talking to someone later that he’d been travelling for loads of hours, when I mentioned this to my mum she reckoned he’d had too much coffee and was on a caffeine high which was why he was so jittery. I noticed someone with a bottle of water to go on the plane and I remembered we’d brought empty bottles with us to fill up so I went in hunt of a drinking fountain.

6.05pm
Obviously I’m in Pat and Frank’s house now, we have been for about 4 or 5 hours now.

We re-boarded the plane exactly an hour later than we should’ve taken off!! When we got on, the plane was still stiflingly hot but we were assured it would cool down once both engines were running properly. Thankfully that was right and as soon as we started moving the temperature became much more comfortable.

I think the small planes fly at a lower altitude than the big planes cos the seatbelt sign went off and the flight attendant started moving around a lot sooner than I expected – and we could still see the ground slightly from there.

Because the flight was only an hour we didn’t have too long to get bored, I simply wrote my diary in my book for the time and my mum read my Paul O Grady book. The landing began a lot sooner than I expected but I just kept on writing, simply leaning on my knee. While I was doing it I was laughing to myself thinking it looked like I was assuming the ‘brace’ position.

When we got off the plane and into the airport at Cleveland we didn’t have to show passports or anything at all – we simply walked straight through :-o We seemed to be following signs for ages to find the baggage collection area but when we finally got through to the correct area Pat saw us before we saw her :-) I left my mum chatting to Pat while I went to collect the case from the baggage carousel – when I got there our case appeared to be the only one which hadn’t been claimed yet (probably because it was such a small plane and we’d gone to the toilets as we got into the building).

We went outside to find Frank in the car and he confused me cos they’d come in the big car that they call ‘Dora’ and last time we were over here she’d stayed in the garage all the time. One of the first questions we were asked when we got to the car was “Have you guys had lunch?” When we said we hadn’t Pat said that’s where we were going!!

They took us to a Bob Evan’s restaurant which is the same chain we went to on the way here from Niagara Falls last time. It seems that Pat and Frank often go to Bob Evan’s and the service today wasn’t as good as usual. They were quite slow bringing our food out and the free coffee refills didn’t come as frequently as Pat would’ve liked.

After lunch we came back to the house and we’ve basically just chilled and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. We’ve got our own rooms here – yippee!!!! Frank took our suitcase and my mum-s carry-on up to our rooms and we got settled into Pat’s sitting room – I’ve got both my laptop AND Frank’s computer hehehehe. The big computer is connected to the internet so I’ve been chatting to friends on msn and putting photo highlights onto facebook – I’m using my USB stick to transfer stuff from my laptop to the internet via Frank’s computer :-)

7.50pm
We’ve had our ‘supper’ we had ham, mash, corn and salad and it was very nice. I’ve also just sorted out my clothes in my room. I’ve put all my outfits on the floor and found I’ve done a slightly silly thing – brought pink socks with me but no pink clothes *rolleyes*

We’re not going to do anything more of interest tonight so I might as well post this now LOL All I imagine is that we’ll sit here chatting and computering until maybe 10ish before going to bed.