27 days ago I posted, announcing my return and promising that I would share my memories of Orlando. The time has come.
My day began at 8am on Friday 16th December 2006. I had spent the whole of the night before until 4am finishing off my final piece of coursework, only to be stopped in my tracks by being unable to send it off. Thus upon waking up, the first thing I do is send my coursework off and then freshen up and get ready to leave.
By around 10am we're all ready and are joined some time later by our family friend, Peter, who will be travelling with us. He and my mum work together, and it's the company that's paying for the holiday. Around 11am-ish we set out and make our way to the nearby bus stop to catch the bus to Heathrow, where our flight will be leaving from Terminal 4 at around 3pm. Upon arrival, it's a long wait and so we pass the time by eating a somewhat hearty meal, and then just before boarding, my mum, Peter and I sample some new brands of Baileys. I quite liked both mint and orange, and the original.
We had a good flight and landed in New York at around 6pm local, UK is about 5 hours ahead of NY, so it'd be 11pm UK time. We stood in the queue for customs and waited...and waited...and so on. My mum asked a nearby assistant if we could make it in time for our connecting flight, which was around 7.30pm, the assistant's reply was positive. So we waited. Then came our turn and we went through the procedures we encountered almost 2 years ago in Los Angeles:
1) Print the Right Index Finger
2) Print the Left Index Finger
3) Look at the mini-cam and have your picture taken
For some reason the customs officer was taking her time, and her supervisor walked past and informed her that after doing us she should go on her break. She completed my mum and I, and then led us to their main Customs office, I think it was Homeland Security. Here, she handed my brothers' passports to a guy behind the desk and told us to take a seat and wait. We waited. He talked on the phone. We waited. He gossipped with his colleague. We waited. He talked on the phone some more while gossipping. We waited. He slowly got to work. By now it was nearing 7.15pm.
No-one had informed us as to why we were brought here. Peter came to check in on us, since he had to go to another officer. He tried to find out what was going on, since we still had to check-in, but the guy told him to go back outside and wait. Just how long did we have to wait?! After a while, the officer called my mum up and started asking her questions about our purpose and whether we had been here before. Honestly.
Since we weren't given any information and they pretty much refused to tell us, we can only assume that they held us back just because my youngest brother's name is 'Mohammed'. Oh My God! Terrorist Alert! Good grief. I felt like yelling out "Bomb!" just to drive them a bit more crazy. It certainly would have made my time a little bit better.
In the end we managed to get across to the right terminal in about 10 minutes, leaving us just 5 minutes to check-in and board. Unfortunately, no go. The gates had been closed and we were screwed/stuck in NY, since the next flight wasn't until early tomorrow or same time that evening. Ducking Shastards.
While trying to decide what to do, Peter took us aside and held a group meeting. He swayed us to the idea of making the best of our situation and to take advantage of it, i.e. spend the night and the next day in NY, catching the flight to Orlando same time that evening. We agreed to this idea, plus we could use some sleep, and so the tickets were booked with a 50% discount. They still made us pay for tickets they made us waste ¬.¬
We then contacted a hotel and spent the night there, ordering delivered take-out. While there, I remembered that America has better Anime than we do, and so I made my brothers surf for Adult Swim, which comes on later, after Cartoon Network. We caught the end of ZatchBell!, which doesn't seem my type of Anime, though the PS2 game looked fun to play. We then surfed around a bit and tuned in again at around 11pm and caught Trinity Blood and Bleach! I squealed in silent excitement at Bleach, since I love the series and have seen the first dubbed episode via downloaded means, and now watched episode 15. The dubbing was superb! But I really shouldn't gush so much, or it'll get jinxed o.O Heaven forbid!
After this, we went to sleep.
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I HATE American security, they're a bunch of numbskulls. Who let those rednecks in charge of the universe?? They're all ex-Britons anyway, the idiot ones who couldn't appreciate what Britain would become if it continued along its tangent (the biggest mother trucking empire in the world). Hang on, we, the rest of the world, let them be in charge. Why? Because they have quite a bit of cool stuff in America *blushes*. I once had some American plank scream at me at an immigration desk when it came to stamping my visa. Did I do something wrong? Was I an illegal mexican who cycled across... the water? (I was in California). Nope. That was his way of asking questions. Apparently, if screamed at, you'll give the actual reason why you're there. Works a TREAT, apparently.
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