Coming to America

---

For as long as i can remember I've wanted go to America. As a small child i would be captured by The Don Lane Show on Australian TV. Here was this man on our screen with his scratchy voice with a heavy American accent, even now i can remember my brain ticking over trying to figure out why he spoke differently to everyone else. Immediately i was drawn to this distinguished accent. There was something about that accent that made me want to know more about it, it felt like it almost like it came from a far away unreachable place. I knew very early on that this was a place that i had to discover.

As my teenage years passed and i reached my twenties, my passion for discovering America was growing rapidly. I was an eager follower of American sports, with the New York Knicks and New York Yankees two of the franchises i had adopted over the years. With the growth of the internet i was able to quash alot of my curiosity about the country and explore facts about the history of America in many different areas. I enjoyed learning about the pilgrims going over on the Mayflower and the colonial war of independence while also being drawn to the traveling stories and images of this far away land.

Finally at the age of 30 i was ready to make the fantasy a reality. I was set to fly out of Australia on December 27, 2007 and return on February 5, 2008. The months leading up to the trip was spent organising hotels, day trips and investigating dozen of websites for the cheapest flights. The trip was going to be my partners first time in the United States as well. Gabby has been around Europe a few times but was about to see a country she had been anticipating seeing one day as well.
The days leading up to our departure were slow, they always are when you're counting down towards something you've been waiting so long for, but eventually we were set to go. Bags were packed, bills paid in advance, and every flight and hotel booked, we finally made our way to Melbourne Airport, ready to fly.

I've never flown further than Sydney, so the thought of an eight hour flight to Hawaii was not sitting well with me. Such a long period of time with nothing much to do and not much room to move isn't my idea of fun. Then again i barely slept with excitement the night before so i hoped i'd fall asleep right away and wake up right before our landing, nice and refreshed for the Hawaiian morning.
Of course that wasn't the case. The flight was long and boring. I couldn't manage to get to sleep despite the in flight movies being terrible and forgettable. About ninety minutes from landing in Honolulu we hit some turbulence. As i was about to take a sip of my beverage i suddenly found myself thrusting it towards the overhead baggage cabin, this was the single most exciting moment of the flight. In fact as the turbulence set in i finally managed to drift into a light sleep. That was short lived though as we began our decent into Oahu.

I didn't know really what to expect when we landed in Oahu. I imagined customs being a long line of people one by one opening their luggage and being grilled by customs officers over their possessions. When we turned up, there were people in line with their bags open, an officer told us to walk on through and bypass the whole ordeal. That was it! Other than having our passports stamped and signing a few forms the whole ordeal lasted 2 minutes at most. That was time just spend standing in line.

The first thing that hits you in Hawaii is the humidity. You're just in a constant sweat from the time you step off the plane until you fly out of the state. We had a few hours until our flight to Los Angeles so we headed for a look around airport to see what there was to offer. A cheese/chili dog was the first thing on the list, after one bite i knew i was going to enjoy the eating in America.
The airport was as all airports seem to be; boring and uninteresting. Honolulu airport at least tried to make things interesting by showing displays of old warships.
By this stage i hadn't slept more than a half hour and i was pretty exhausted. Anyway, after awhile we were ready to board and head towards Los Angeles International Airport. Again the flight was a bore, and again i couldn't sleep. As we descended into L.A i finally began to feel the excitement. Even though we were officially in the United States when we hit Hawaii, i was longing to hit mainland America. With much excitement i stepped off the plane, i was NOW in America!

---