Musings from America 1 - the journey

Hello and welcome, I need to apologise to any remaining followers of Malcolm's Miscellaneous Musings, for the absence which sort of crept up on me. Don't worry dear reader, I will not try and catch up in a single blog, indeed I determined to start again but reference missing events that explain things as we go along.

One thing was the start of a new relationship, now approaching 24 months, and that sets the scene for the American theme, we went to the USA to visit my partner, Tsitsi's need to go for the birth of her daughter's first baby and hence the first grandchild. I suspect this might be worth a few words in due course. 

For now lets reflect on the planning and making the journey. Now I have become less and less keen on flying and on using airports, and being a big lad and with a bad knee, the thought of 9 hours in the meager space allocated was not attractive. The solution eventually was to go Business Class ....... not cheap when you pay for yourself, but having been on the outward leg Manchester to Atlanta, I will never travel in the cattle class again.

The seats, or rather the pods you get are superb, reclining seats which go all the way flat, the airline Delta, provided pillows and duvet, and you have ...... well a sort of TV but one each and you can select TV, Films, Music etc on a touch screen, saw one film, listened to some new to me music, through supplied headphones which provided high quality sound. The only downside was being interrupted by the cabin staff offering drinks, meals, snacks, hot towels. Excellent meals, high quality food ... I had fillet steak......in all 4 courses, real china and metal knives and forks. Maybe they believe that passengers in the back of the plane, Americans say 'coach', are more likely to hijack the plane if given real cutlery.

Constant supplies of bottled water and after the lunch, we had 'snacks' in the afternoon, three course snacks that is, prawns and salmon, pizza, ice cream if you really want to know.

So plane travel good, ....... airports less so, but we found a way to make that better. Now I have a heart flutter and a arthritic knee, which in combination means standing around in queues and walking through large airports, Atlanta is huge ! difficult. So following advice on the airlines web site, I sought assistance. This involved a wheelchair and pusher first from check in to complimentary business lounge, and then to the Boarding Dock and indeed right to the plane's entrance door, via security checks, I remained in chair, no taking off shoes or belts and fast lane through, highly recommended.

Atlanta was less so, again chair and handler awaiting, miles and I do not exaggerate through this very big facility, via baggage claim, to Customs and Immigration.

USA border police have no sense of humour and it pays to answer clearly and concisely, other passengers were diverted to another room ....... just like on those immigration programs on TV, we cleared after a little delay as the computer froze as he inputted Tsitsi's details. She believes God was watching over her, which was just as well, as her and my suitcases contained a number of items that might be difficult to explain, mainly African ingredients.......think freeze dried caterpillars and grain to make sudsa ..........

Perhaps to make up for our so far good progress, we ended up at arrivals front entrance to find the wheelchair and attendant could go no further and to get to the carhire pick up desks, meant a bus ride, but left us with 6 bags, some pretty big.........one feature of Business Class is allowance of two checked bags up to 32Kg each plus a take on bag each and my dearest made good use of it .........I guess we are away for two months so somewhat necessary .......... but getting that on and off a shuttle bus...."no way" as Americans say. So a taxi ride to somewhere on the extreme edge of the airport.

So picture the scene two old people surrounded by bags in a car park somewhere, no trollies.............leaving Tsitsi guarding the bags I ventured in to collect car, well actually I collected more paperwork and dispensed money produced my licence twice and then walked across a road bridge to the cars. Now I have hired in the UK and also Spain but this system was different. See office, no one in, stand around for a bit, see agent who asks what I want, says she will get the vehicle Jeep Grand Cherokee brought round .........Time passes, she returns and says take any of these pointing to a row of SVUs.

Not wanting to leave my lady with all the bags somewhere for too long, I checked out a few, brands and models with which I am unfamiliar, and choose one that seemed to have room for all the bags. I believe it was a Chevy.....

Now to drive back to where we were dropped, but now two double carriageways away, but only one missed circuit and eventually reunited, Tsitsi sat on bags on the grass, looking like a lost and abandoned soul.

Atlanta traffic notwithstanding, a reasonable journey to Nashville but second half in dark

Though I did not like the Chevy Something, very light and vague steering, seat belt at wrong height and missing the high power, bend round the bends, headlights on my left at home C6............in fact no citroens spotted then nor since.

Arrived at Nashville Navigon satnav US edition proved its worth, straight to the door.

Settled in and to bed, jet lag ok but a long day left nottingham at 6:30 now in Nashville at 22:00 local time ie four o'clock in the morning UK time.