From: "Philip Merryman" <phil_merryman@hotmail.com>

Date: Wed May 01, 2002 08:37:25 PM Etc/GMT

Subject: Coming to America

Hi all again,

I am trying to get up to date with my mails, and I will soon, honest!! :-) So now that I am in Portland I can tell you about how I got to Seattle.

The flight from Easter Island was routine, though pretty nearly full this time. It was heavy cloud and showers so no chance of a view of the island, I didn't have a window seat anyway! The info said to check in at 8am, but I was one of the first there, most arrived around 9, so I could have had an extra hour in bed!!

At Santiago there was about 3 hours or more to get the flight to Miami, so no repeat of the panic on the ourward journey! As I was leaving the island a day early I had decided to get to Miami and then sort out if I could get to Seattle a day earlier too, rather than hang around Miami airport for a day. In the departure lounge at Santiago were some computer terminals so I was able to let my friend in Seattle, Connie, know what I was doing. I would call her from within the USA once I knew what was going to happen. However my flight to Miami was due in at 5:30am!! Which was about 2:30 Seattle time!! The original flights required a change of plane in Dallas, so I thought I would call once I was actually about to get on the Seattle plane.

Also at Santiago on the computer terminals I was at last able to find out some very important information I had so far not been able, or had time, to get: Who won the Masters, how Paula Radcliffe had got on in the London Marathon, who had got to the FA Cup Final, and how Spurs had got on recently!!!

Flight overnight from Santiago to Miami routine, but half an hour late, loose change by recent events! So arrived at Miami at 6am (same time zone), a sea of lights in the dark. I then had to clear customs. However just as we were getting off the plane my name was called out over the PA!! Oooerr!! What could this be?? Lost bag?, Connie unable to meet me?? anything else??? In the end it was simply that they hadn't collected my ticket from me when I checked in!! Phew!! However this made me virtually the last off the plane!

At customs I found out that Lan Chile had given me the incorrect customs form, and it was all in Spanish!! I needed a visa waiver one, which they didn't have on the plane. So over to another desk to get the correct one. By then I was the only one left in the customs hall!! So this time by the time I got to the baggage claim the bag had got here first and was waiting for me!!! It then had to be opened to have my boots disinfected again (Foot & Mouth!!)

I then found the American Airlines desk and they got me flights to Seattle, this time via St. Louis. Take off at 08:25. It was still very early and I had no change to call Connie, so I decided to wait until St. Louis. I checked the rucksack back in and had to turn it out again as they saw something on the x-ray. It was the box with all my battery charger, flashgun and other techie bits! This took a bit of getting out! and getting back in again! Entering the departure lounge I had my hand luggage turned out, shoes x-rayed! My body searched.

Checked in at flight. As I am about to board, pulled aside to be searched again! Again, check of bag, shoes, metal detector, frisk. I am sure it's all because that @#$%^%$@ shoe bloke was a UK citizen! Anyway plane backs off on time. Lovely sunny morning so on take off get a great view of Miami Beach. As we climb I feel my ears pop a bit, nothing much but a bit more than usual. Pilot comes over PA: Cabin is not pressurising so we have to go straight back down!!! Back on the ground maintenance come over and it takes nearly 3 hours to fix!!! So for a two and a half hour flight we are now 3 hours late! And we are on the plane all the time. There goes the conection in St. Louis!! Eventually we get airborne again, but its not completely fixed, so we only fly at 24000ft instead of 31000.

As both flights are with American Airlines, or to be precise with their now subsidairy TWA, the crew call ahead to sort out all the connecting flights for all of us. The plane is over half empty. As I only managed a couple of hours sleep on the Santiago-Miami flight (same time zone) I stretch out across some empty seats at the back. Get down in St. Louis, check for next connecting flight: only half an hour!!! So hurry to gate. Join queue to get boarding transferred from missed flight to this one (had been pre-arranged that we could do this). By then only about 10 mins to board. There is a phone, so try to ring Connie, but its long distance and I don't have enough change!! So get in queue to board and guess what? Pulled out and searched again!!!!!!!

So eventually get on flight and this one is mercifully routine!! But nearly 4 hours. However with only 30 mins to transfer I can forsee the same problem with my bag as happened at Buenos Aires. I ask a flight attendant but she was confident that it would be OK. Land in Seattle OK at about 5pm local time (3 hours behind Miami). Immediately off the plane I find a phone and call Connie to let her know I had arrived, and got the answering machine. So assuming she was out shopping or something I said I would wait at the airport for her.

Get through to baggage claim and she is there!!! She had been checking up with the airlines to find out what flights I was on, but she had been there over 4 hours!!!! Then a miracle: my bag is virtually the first off the plane!!! Obviously the last one on, so the first off!

We drive up the freeway to Seattle, it is the beginning of rush hour. We get into the town OK in about 30 minutes. A few blocks from her house we are in a stationary queue of traffic, on a downslope, in gentle rain when: WHAM!! We get rear-ended! This pushes us into the car in front as well!!! Fortunately we are just a bit shaken and not hurt. So we have to go through the usual palaver of insurance, police, etc. and all blocking the road!! So traffic weaving both sides. With all my stuff in the boot (trunk) I was a bit worried as to what had happened to it. Fortunately the car behind had come off worse in the front and although the rear of Connie's car had been pushed in slightly the only visible damage is a dent on the bumper and that the boot lid is no longer a good fit, but did still lock. Stuff still perfectly OK. Honda Accord hit in rear by Honda Accord! (though different styles). We had only touched the one in front, so no damage there beyond a squashed licence plate.

So after all this I actually end up 15 degrees further West than Easter Island, and another hour behind. So I have actually gone backwards!! I do not get less West than Easter Island until after I leave the Grand Canyon! If you don't believe me check a globe! But I am now back in the Northern Hemisphere. I was not sleeping on the Santiago Miami flight so I turned on the map display and it just happened to be at the point where we crossed the equator: at 2:15 am local time!

Sights etc in and around Seattle to follow!!

Share and Enjoy!

Phil