At the airport...

Their flight left half an hour late apparently (thanks for that 2am text Rach! ;^) ) but according to the board they'll get in 1 minute early. In fact in theory they've already landed. Hopefully their ground crew knows how to position the plane!

Meanwhile my Nokia E65 works again so now I need to search out an American pre-paid SIM that I can use for the trip. Anyone have any suggestions for this?

On the things going wrong side, my right shoe is going flat and seems to be getting louder - step, *hiss*, step, *hiss*, step, *hiss*... It's worse on solid floors so I'm waiting for airport security to ask about that. My manager suggested a mall (malls have wikipedia pages?) that we'll pass on the way out of SF and recommended Skechers. I'm assuming he never had a pair of those go flat.

Airport blues...

Didn't realise that you cannot, in fact, clear American immigration in Dublin - any time I've flown from Ireland to the States previously, it's been from Shannon. No matter. There's plenty of seating in terminal D and it's the last time my 3G card will work until I return to Ireland.

I remembered to get a bunch of extra visa-waiver forms, as I've always managed to fill them out wrong the first time. Got it right the first time this morning, but someone else didn't, and managed to use all my spares ;-)

The plane is slightly delayed, but hopefully only by fifteen minutes or so. I've brought my 'ghey-pee-ess' as Rach now calls it, so we shouldn't get lost... after all, it can navigate from Dublin to Kilkenny in a mere 7 hours assuming you take the scenic route over the Wicklow mountains :-)

Here's to a peaceful flight and a relaxing holiday in the US. See you soon Kev!

Not a creature was stirring...

It's the night before Gar and Rach get here. I talked to them on the phone as they got on the plane and they were all good to go. This is my last night in lovely downtown Mountain View (my leafy street is pictured to the right) and looking forward to spending the night in San Francisco.

We're planning on going to see an Oakland A's (vs the Cleveland Indians) on Sunday. It's nice to show people new to your country one of your traditional national sports (*cough*).

$ and €

1 EUR = 1.57210 USD

That has changed since I checked at 9am in our favour:)

Gars DS has been found thanks to Ciara:)

Bags aren't packed yet but who needs bags packed with the value of the dollar?;)

It's the last day of work...

...for three whole weeks! Everything must be completed and/or handed over by the end of today. There is no panic here.

In other news, the camera is still missing, the GPS has been located and batteries charged. MP3/Ogg players are at the ready, and I'm packing a CD writer and a few blanks in case the car only has a CD player and we can't plug an MP3/Ogg player into the radio directly.

The car has been hired, the Nightwish gig attended, the suitcases recovered from the attic and the junk tipped out of them, the clothes washed, the kitten fed, the passport renewed, and the tickets lost. With just over 24 hours to find them again, I think we'll all be okay.

Next stop, Dublin's finest airport...

Old favourites...

So my first week back in the States and I've had several old favourites - including Cap'n Crunch for breakfast! Yum! Apparently it has something other that sugar in it. Who knew?

In other news the fabulous Rachael and the fine folks at Car Hire 3000 have found our vehicle (that's VEE-hikle by the way - hopefully folks can help Rach and Gar learn to speak proper English): a Chevrolet Uplander. The review isn't exactly glowing but it looks like it has the room we need and won't be too tank-like to drive.

Hotels!

So we're booked into the Hotel Triton in San Francisco for our first two nights. Still trying to figure out the car. We've been looking on Car Hire 3000 and Kayak.com for cars. For car models the Toyota Sienna seems good for a minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica seems good for a "crossover" (uh, isn't that just a bulky station wagon? OK, apparently not.) and for large sedans the Chrysler 300 and Buick Lucerne seem good.

Anyone have any opinions? This will be for three people, their growing amount of luggage ($1.55 to the euro? shopping fever!) over 4,500 miles so a Dodge Neon is not on the cards. Or a Miata for that matter (*sniff*).

In lovely Mountain View, California

Made it to San Francisco. There was a lengthy argument between the ground crew and the pilot regarding the exit ramp. Sadly my cold seems worse so I'm going to break my normal advice and crash at 5pm. I suspect Mountain View at 2am on a Monday morning is even more boring!