Hello U.S.A

Ahh, the land of large Cokes that are large. We're at LAX, waiting for a flight to Phoenix, as because of the delay to our Sydney to Los Angelos we missed our direect flight to Kansas City. Which originally seems like a huge pain in the ass, but the fact that we're connecting through Phoenix as a result rocks my world. I might just have to jump off there.

It's also preferable to the flights originally suggested by the South West ticketting assistant, which was LA to El Paso, to Dallas, to Kansas City. And this point, that many connections just wouldn't have been fun. I love the whole flying and travelling thing, but with the amount of carry on luggage we have, getting off and on planes is a real pain!

In anycase, entry into the US was very smooth and arguably quicker when I've been here on holidays with visa wavers. Since this time around I was in a different line (first time immigrant), the process was very streamlined, since there weren't that many of us (I was the only person in the line). It turned out that the immigration interview on this end was just going through customs, and getting finger printed. The processing was done while we went and got our luggage, and was waiting when I went back up to the counter where I'd come in.

Getting through customs was just as easy, though it was a huge line. Since our flight got in late, we were pressed for time, and I was dreading the potential delay at customs, since we had no shortage of suitcases with our whole lives packed in them. But it turned out to be a very quick process, with the only concern being whether we had any food products.

From here it was just a case of getting to the South West terminal - in about 20 minutes. Just like when I was here in 2006, it sucked doing the walk from Tom Bradley International to Terminal 1, especially since that with all our luggage it didn't make sense to try and get on a shuttle. Despite deciding to go the other way before getting here, I directed us to go clockwise around the airport, which once we got to terminal 1, seemed like a bad call (though, looking at the LAX map in highensight, it was absolutely the right decision). It really seemed like a deja vu of 2006, rushing around in a circle with luggage, pouring sweat. The only caveat this time was that we were pretty sure there was no way we were getting on our flight to Kansas City!

After getting all our luggage rechecked, and paying the US $120 in excess baggage (which is actually great given what we have) there was sometime to relax somewhat and have a smoke. Funnily enough, the desk clerk at South West, who was quite helpful, asked whether we wanted to repack our bags, to somewhat avoid the excess baggage fees. Little did she know of our packing ordeal of last night (what it actually last night? Now that we're in a different timezone, I don't even know anymore!), and we were MORE than happy to just pay the full excess baggage fee!

It's been a completely wild ride, with absolutely no time to fully process what is going on, and standing outside the terminals of LAX was the first time that I've really been able to take in the fact that we're here - we've done it. It's been a long time in the making, and so much work over the past year, but now, here we are, in the USA. There's still a lot of work ahead of us before Operation Desert Rock is complete, but still, we've moved all of our stuff, we're here and I'm now officially a perminant resident. It's interesting how you can work so hard and put so much effort into something, and then standing at your destination, it all seems like it was relatively easy and there is a sense of surprise that you're there. I think there are a lot of contributing factors to it, andd one of the large ones being how busy we've been and not having time to dwell too much on the reality of making the move. In anycase, it was finally really exciting realising that we're here!

After a little decompression we headed through security, which was incredibly quiet in terms of people - maybe because it was Wednesday afternoon - which was a much appreciated thing, as going through security at LAX is almost always a stressful experience due to the volumes of people. After that there wasn't much left to do but get a drink, head dto our gate, and wait for our next flight.