Tuesday 12 June 2012

Leaving on a jet plane

5am arrived very quickly, MrGrumpy headed off to the airport with MrMercedes. The Monday traffic and heavy rain on the M25 turned a 2 hours journey into an almost 3 hour one, always a good start for international travel.
The pickup was early enough that the extra traffic did not make him late. He had already checked in online, so he rushed from the car to the terminal to avoid getting too wet. Without having to visit the bag-drop he went directly to security, this was pretty quiet and he was passed in a few minutes.
After breakfast and a walk around the stores, it was 9:20am and time to head to the gate.
At the gate MrGrumpy was selected for a "random" additional security check (pat down and bag checks), this was quite annoying as the past three times he has flown out of Heathrow he has been selected at "random"...
He noticed that the plane was "Mustang Sally", this was the same plane he flew back on a couple of weeks ago.

The flight was generally uneventful, he was pleased that his seat plan worked out. He booked the asile on a row of 4 with the far 2 already booked, lucky nobody wanted or was placed in the one next to him, giving him room to spread out more.

As the flight started its decent into SFO, the air crew informed everyone that there were another couple of international flights landing at about the same time and they would be best getting to immigration asap to avoid a 2-3 hour wait. Upon leaving the aircraft there was a sense of urgency as people headed along the corridors towards immigration. The warning worked and they arrived prior to the others, it was not long before MrGrumpy could see the queue was out of the hall.

Immigration went well, he got MrChatty at the desk, no issues except that his leaving date is limited to the passport expiry (but MrGrumpy already knew this from last time).

MrGrumpy headed over to the BART platform, firstly he brought a $4 ticket to Millbrae and as he did a train left the station. "Typical" he thought. It was not long before another train arrived, it was signed as SF so he asked it it went to Millbrae, "no you will need one from the other platform" he was told.
Off he went to the other platform and checked the timetable, there should be one at 5 past the hour, so only 15-20 mins to wait.
He was the only person on that platform, he waited, 14:05 arrived, there was now another train at the original platform but no sign of anything where he was waiting.
Over the PA system came an announcement, "passengers for all stations should take this train and change at San Bruno". If he had known this he could have taken either of the previous trains.

At San Bruno he waited for the Millbrae train, only a 4 minute wait and just one stop togo.
At Millbrae he brought a CalTrain ticket (this time to the correct station) and went to the platform, only a 5 or so minute wait and the train arrived. He was now able to relax and listen to music for almost another hour before getting off the train. At Lawrence (the stop after Sunnyvale) he left the train, got his bearings and headed towards the office (only a 10 min walk and there was a sidewalk, which helps).

MrGrumpy could see the tan roof of the Mustang as he walked though the car park and into the office. His first thing was to get a nice cold can of Coke (other cold beverages are available) and refresh himself from the walk in the 24 Degree sunshine.

In the post room his pidgin hole contained several letters, a couple from the bank (charges received for getting his expenses), one from Ticketmaster and one from the DMV.

It was time to head back to home (US one), he went out to the car park and found the dusty Mustang, clicking the remote unlocked it, that was good, now would it start? Yes of cause it did, not problem, now all he had to do was remember to drive on the wrong side of the road.

On the way home MrGrumpy went to the local supermarket (Lucky) to buy some provisions for the week, this time he even brought some food (cheap so prob won't taste any better that the previous stuff).

Back at home, everything was quiet, it was also pretty warm, so on with the Aircon while putting away the shopping. He had powered down the Wifi repeater and Airport express while he was away, now he did not seem to have any internet access. No even the GuestHouse Wifi was working, he could connect but the internet was nowhere to be found.

He tried several things, changing a few settings, rebooting etc, but nothing was working. "Time to enable the 4G on the iPad" he thought, so went through the sign-up process. For $20 he would get 1GB, that should hopefully be enough for a month (when he does not have wifi).  If finalised the process and tried to get online, nope nothing, tried reseting the device etc, still nothing. The account was showing as "Pending" this was not hopeful. Finally as it was getting late, he gave up for today, time to sleep... (almost 9pm)






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