Definitely the Long Way Round…
If you read my last post from the Dominican Republic, you may remember how I mentioned that the end of one trip meant the start of another. However, I didn’t mention just how soon! Not long before my holiday, my boss mentioned an opportunity to go and work in the USA for a month. It wasn’t definite, but if I was interested he was happy to nominate me. Anyway, of course I was interested and I was chosen, so I was understandably delighted about that. My flights and accommodation are all covered and I get a reasonable daily budget for food & drink. There was one slight drawback however; the day I needed to fly over to Minneapolis was the day I got back from the Dominican Republic. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was around a 3 hour margin of delay possible in order for me not to miss the flights.
Back to business! Well, as expected,yesterday was a long day. I arrived back in Newcastle at 4.15am after 8 hours on a pretty naff ThomsonFly flight from a week’s holiday in the Dominican Republic (which was fantastic, by the way!) and I was able to get a whole hour in bed before having to go back to the airport. It would have been longer, had it not been for Swissport taking literally an hour to get the bags off the plane. The two Swissport staff in the baggage area were utterly incompetent and just kept giggling amongst themselves. Irate customers soon put that to an end however and eventually the bags came and I got home for around 6am. I had a flight at 10am to Amsterdam and then a 3 hour wait for my 9 hour flight to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I couldn’t get access to my email, so naturally I just went to the bar where I got taking to a guy from New York, who said how the relationship between Scotland and England was just like Hawaii and the rest of the U.S. I wasn’t too sure what he was getting at but I just nodded politely anyway…Flight to the States was great – I’d heard mixed reviews about Northwest Arlines but I was impressed with everything about it, especially the fact that you get 2 little bottles of vodka each time you order a vodka and Coke…and the plane was brand new. Bonus.
U.S. Immigration was my main concern for delay, as I had a pretty tight schedule in order to catch the bus I needed to get to Rochester, some 70 miles from Minneapolis Airport. Fortunately it was fairly easy, although the queue did take quite a while to go down. I didn’t get much in the way of questions, and once they’d taken my fingerprints and photo I was on my way again. The only issue I had was when handing in my customs declaration form after passport control, where the woman on the desk was very snotty when I put the form on the desk, instead of in her hand. The fact I was juggling a pile of paperwork and 3 bags didn’t seem to register, and she sat and waited until I picked up the form and put it in her hand. Pathetic! However I just got on with it without making any kind of fuss, being funny with these guys would not be a good idea at all really!
Bus ride to the hotel was just over an hour. I have a suite with a kitchen, king size bed, en suite and two LCD TV’s (one in the living area, one in my bedroom). There’s also a fitness centre and pool/hot tub. It’s nice! Also since it’s a Marriott it means I will clock up some serious points on my Marriott reward card! Once I was in my room I was pretty much straight to bed. Heaters had to go on mind – last week I was in 30 degree heat, and now it’s more like 3 degrees.
Got myself to the office this morning – the complex is seriously huge (I had a meeting and it was a 15 minute walk each way) and politely informs visitors that guns are not allowed, which is good to know I suppose….no windows in my office though. I’m with 3 other guys – a Colombian, who is the Project Manager, a Swiss guy and an Italian. Just had lunch, at a Mexican fast-food place called Chipotle. Very nice indeed but the portions are obviously massive. But it’s ok, I have a gym. There are vending machines all over with Mountain Dew!! Great!
So that’s it so far, I think the next few weeks will be hard work, but we’ve already started talking about what cities we’re going to look into going to at weekends. Minneapolis/St Paul are obvious but also theres talk of Chicago and Las Vegas, but the flights seem expensive – so much for cheap internal air travel in the U.S. However, this is great news for me becuase I was wanting to make the most of my time and see some sights. The guys have already been out to find the local bars too – this is equally important. I was expecting to be in a room with 40+ guys with long hair for a month, so this is a real surprise.
