Fun in the USA

Well, they let me in the country - suckers! It was an interesting flight - stuck in the middle seat of 5 around the middle of the plane and wishing I had forked out the additional 350 GBP to upgrade! The food was okay if a bit greasy and lots of cheese. I could have upgraded - I didn't spend anywhere near as much money as I thought I would so I could have afforded it. If I get the opportunity again and it's not horrendously expensive, I'll do it - the upgraded seats were much nicer and roomier.

For reasons known only to my travel booker, this flight went from London to Philadelphia VIA CHICAGO! That's where I had to go through immigration and customs - yep, had to claim my baggage and then recheck it for the next bit of the flight - which was on a much smaller plane and I was in literally the last seat, right next to the toilet which didn't have a light - but at least I was by the window, even though my boarding pass had me in the aisle seat! A young guy turned up just as I was getting settled and he said he was in the aisle seat, so I swapped quite happily.

I had a reasonable view if I sat up straight and twisted round a bit - and saw a landscape when we were around a half hour away from Philadelphia that I am convinced was the inspiration for the Shiver Barrens in Glenda Larke's awesome Mirage Makers trilogy. For mile after mile there were these tree-clad ridges that went for miles and in between were flat valleys with fields and towns and then another ridge and another valley, almost ad infinitum. Eventually the ridges ran out - I shall have a look on Google Earth to see if I can locate them.

Then I got to Philadelphia, and had a major blonde moment by not recognising the friend who was there to pick me up! I walked right by him - his t-shirt should have given me the clue but he didn't look tall enough. Obviously my memory of him from 18 years ago is VERY faulty!

I retrieved my baggage and waited, and waited, until I spotted my other friend who was going away on holiday today, so she came out to the airport to say hi and have a beer - she was the one who approached this t-shirt clad man after we'd been waiting around for quite a while and found out he was my ride!

Much embarrassment!

We had our beer (well, Sue had the beer and the food, Bob and I had tea) and chatted for a while then we went our separate ways. It was really weird to be sitting on the left side of the car and not be driving! No way will I do any driving over here - too scary this time around.

This morning, when I finally surfaced (I'd been up from 3.3oam UK time and when I went to bed it was around 3.30AM UK time again!) we went and did some grocery shopping and I was gobsmacked to see, in the fish market, TILAPIA for sale.

Now, for those of you not in Qld, or even in Australia, Tilapia is regarded as a pest fish and it is illegal to catch it. I cannot understand why the state govt is not encouraging people to go catch and eat it as by all accounts (and the website that came up on Google for tilapia recipes) it is a nice fish. If enough people catch it surely their effect on the native fish will be reduced? Or am I being incredibly naive to think the state govt is capable of thinking intelligently?

Yep, naive!

This may be my last post for a couple of days as I don't know what network facilities my other friend has, the one I'm going to stay with from tomorrow until next Tuesday when I fly to Dallas, so don't panic. I have definitely made sure that the hotel in Dallas has free wifi!

Stay safe everyone!