Day 16: Travelling to New Jersey

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We both got a decent night's sleep on the plane thanks to the assistance of a couple of sleeping pills. We awoke, had a quick bite of Saudi Arabian airline food and before we knew it we were landing at JFK.

We arrived at the passport control area and after standing in line for ages, finally got to the front and were greeted by a power-hungry high horse of an immigration official. First of all, he did not consider Rach and I travelling together a 'family' and required us to fill out separate customs forms, even though we were told on the aeroplane and also by an assistant whilst waiting in line that we'd only need to fill out one. So Rach had to run back and fill out the form exactly the same as me whilst I stayed with this power-hungry muppet who proceeded to say “ok sir, you're going to have to follow me into the backroom for further questioning”...no explanation, no niceties, just an absolute knob. So I was led into the backroom, waving goodbye to Rach who was left waiting in line probably never to see me again. I sat and waited for about 5 minutes until “Benjamin, please proceed to the counter” was called. This guy seemed a bit nicer but I was still kind of nervous as Rach and I hadn't printed out any sort of confirmation from our Visa waiver application. In the end, it was nothing more than a couple of extra questions as to why an Aussie was travelling to the US through Saudi Arabia. As soon as I told him our travel plans and the move back to Oz and why we had to fly through Jeddah, he was cool and sent me on my way. I was glad to see Rach had already collected our bags and was waiting for me, and I wasn't been put on the first plane back to Oz or worse, the Middle East.

We got out of the airport and successfully decrypted Susan's text message explanations on the train connections to get out to New Jersey. First we caught the Airport Link, then the LIRR and finally the NJ Transit and about 4 hours after getting off the plane we arrived at Hamilton Station and were collected by Susan.

It was a really nice drive through outer suburbia and into rural farmland to get to the Galli homestead. Once we arrived, I met the family, David and Jackie and the extended family...a dog, 2 cats, a couple of budgies and a giant black pig named of course Percey Pig. We just rested for the rest of the day, freshened up with a shower after a long commute and were treated to a delightful dinner of turkey fajitas...which was just the start of our week-long culinery turkey experience as the Galli's have their own small turkey business, producing all sorts of turkey meat products.

We hit the hay pretty early given our long commute. Rach uploaded some blogs and photos in bed whilst I think I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!!

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