The adventure begins…
Very early start this morning to drive down to Heathrow. Turns out we made far better time than expected so had to spend far too much time sleepwalking around terminal 3 and trying to drink our own weight in Coffee and Tea to stay awake.
The flight was pretty painless and even had a surprisingly nice in-flight Christmas dinner! Didn’t expect that after all the horror stories of British Airways catering. A pleasant surprise to be sure.
Even though it was a day flight I still managed an hour or so of sleep. Ellen however couldn’t manage it, instead she stayed up and made use of the in flight movies and then discovered a new addiction in Stardew valley on the Switch.
Finally, we arrived in Austin as the sun was going down. As Sod’s Law would have it, our bags were last out and so it took almost two hours to get through baggage and customs. Then my first experience of the USA hit as we were vomited out onto the arrivals pick up area at the airport. It’s was absolute chaos! Drivers wrestled for the best pick up spot, abandoning huge vehicles in the road at times with no regard for others. Running on 1.5 hours sleep in 20 hours, this was all a bit overwhelming. This it turned out however was nothing compared to the roads. Slip roads and junctions appear and disappear without warning and people seem to drive with no regard for each other. It almost seems like in the U.K. we drive more defensively as a whole, whereas here (at first impression) it’s more offensively. Either way, it was an assault on the senses for sure!
One thing I find interesting in my sleep deprived delirium was that whilst it’s all very different the stores, architecture etc are (thanks to Hollywood I guess) still strangely familiar.
Now though, we are here safe, albeit running on fumes and catching up with Ellen’s family ready for Christmas. It just remains to be said that we’re excited to be finally starting our year of adventure.
