As for the rest of the month before I flew over, spent some of it going out walking as there was a bit of a heatwave back home (not as warm as in Connecticut though!), as well as preparing for the US trip, which involved a bit of worrying over nothing. I was a bit reluctant to say bye to my family, anyone who goes on holiday for a while, especially if they're going abroad, will know how that is, but I just had to remember it wasn't a goodbye, more like a "see you later".
Now for the getting there - I stayed overnight at the Doubletree hotel at Newcastle airport, it was spot on, had a nice room and bathroom, and I also had a good meal at the hotel's Italian restaurant, though I went and overdid it a little but I having a margherita pizza and a garlic bread pizza (I didn't realise it would be big!). Unfortunately, because of some noise outside and my excitement for the trip, I didn't get very much sleep at all.
Checked in just fine at the airport the next day, however my flight down to London Heathrow was delayed by about 20-30 minutes because of the sucky weather. The flight itself was a little choppy, but nice and quick all the same, and despite the delay I still got down to Heathrow with plenty of time to make my connecting flight to New York JFK, which was a canny long flight at 7 hours, and again that also was a bit choppy in places, but the seat-back entertainment and views of the sky, sea and land were worth it.
The view from my seat on the Newcastle-Heathrow flight
The view from my seat on the Heathrow-JFK flight
And then, the part I was dreading most of all, US customs - as far as the actual interrogation goes, it went better than last time, I showed the officer my documents to prove I had enough money to cover my time in the US, and she let me through, though not without barking at me for putting my fingers on the fingerprint scanner the wrong way. The only part that was worse than last time was the insanely long queue, because my flight arrived at the same time as two others, so you can imagine how chock-a-block it was. None of that mattered once I met up with Nicole in the terminal lobby though.
In short, it's great to be back in the US with Nicole, and hopefully in July's blog I'll have a lot of stories to tell about my time here, so stay tuned.
To finish things off, because the Wimbledon tennis has started, here's some tennis-themed artwork:
"Bob & Flyer - Anyone for Tennis VI"
