Arrival 05/15/2021

Hello from California, Mitchell here!

We've now been here 3 days! Here's a little update on how the last few days have looked for us.

On Tuesday evening we spent the night in a little hotel a bus ride away from Heathrow so we could get there early for our 8:40 flight (we woke up at 3:30am!). Despite getting to the airport only slightly earlier than the recommended arrival time we still had to wait for almost an hour before anyone turned up to check us in! We were then through check in and security very quickly as while the staff were reduced due to COVID the reduction in passengers compared to any other time either of us has been in an airport was much more substantial.

Waiting for the bus

Empty airport

Empty travellators

Our flight to the US was much less than half full and we were allowed to take any seat we wanted without changing class (We'd maybe have all fit in first class but oh well). Our request for vegetarian food on the flight for some reason got us one vegetarian and one vegan option for everything but it was quite nice to chose between ourselves.

Our mostly empty flight

We got into Dallas Texas an hour earlier than planned and security was super quick, they had a face scanner that meant all our info came up without them even needing to see our passports which was very impressive and meant we were in great time for our next flight. We had to grab our checked bags off the conveyor only to put them back on another one which seemed a bit odd but was kind of nice to see our bags again and I think made me more confident they got on the right flight which we were in great time for. 

Texas airport did not disappoint

This confidence in our bags was very little comfort when we didn't manage to get on the flight. In a very rushed boarding procedure, apparently due to a member of the flight crew going missing, our boarding group was never called and by the time we got suspicious of this (only a couple minutes after the previous group was called due to the rate they were going) the flight was boarding, desks abandoned and the doors locked! After the flight attendants came back out and we complained, we were very unhelpfully told how many people did manage to get on the flight which I think unsurprisingly was not a great reassurance to us. We were able to get tickets for the next flight to California for free thankfully with very little fuss and are still hoping to get some money back from American Airlines as we had to wait in the airport an extra 5 hours!

The internal American flight was full but we were seated by the emergency exit so it was nice to have the extra leg room. I managed to sleep for the whole three hour flight and was very surprised by the time I woke that the flight was almost over. We managed to collect our bags which had been held for us very easily upon arrival and got a taxi to our airbnb which we're in for the first month. Once we got there (10pm California time, more than 24 hours since we got to Heathrow!) we tried to contact our families but found that the wifi log in info wasn't available in the flat and neither of our phones seemed to be managing roaming very well. Emily managed to receive one email but that was all her phone was up for doing. Giving up we went to sleep with the intention of waking early on the Thursday to sort the internet because I had to email in some forms now we'd arrived ready for a meeting at 1pm!

On Thursday morning the wifi login info still hadn't presented itself even to our more awake brains and our phones still weren't doing anything on data. As such we were forced out into the early morning to try and find free wifi to contact our airbnb host to ask for the wifi log in! Without even having google maps to rely on Emily took us in what she thought was the direction on the city college and downtown area (but which turned out to just be the town and the city college was in the opposite direction) and we managed to find some restaurants. Figuring we were out now we got breakfast at a cafe which had wifi.

Our table at the coffee bean

Contacting our family we found they had decided not to worry about us not messaging and assume we'd decided not to message as they'd have been asleep at the time we arrived. Messaging the airbnb host got us an automatic reply through the site providing us with log on information for a wifi. After eating we headed back to our temporary home, only to find out this was out of date wifi information and having to immediately head back out to wait for the accurate information from the host.

I managed to get my documents sent off and the grocery shop Emily had placed before leaving turned up exactly as planned (although most of the liquids were in slightly larger volumes than we intended).

1 gallon of orange juice

Emily then read in the sun in our little patio area while I sorted out some stuff for work now that we had internet access, including a zoom meeting with the International affairs department of the university which provided some confidence the wifi was up to video calls pretty well. We also both ordered SIM cards and in my case a new phone as the phone I got in January is apparently not going to work in the US!! In the evening having finished up the work that needed doing... we got burritos through doordash and went to bed at about 7:30pm.

Friday I had another meeting with HR at the university, this call was awful quality so it was nice this one came second and I knew it was the internet at the other end causing the issue. We had an important FedEx delivery of documents which we had to keep an ear out for as our address covers three airbnbs and we weren't able to add delivery instructions. Luckily Emily saw the van go past as they ended up missing the address entirely and we had to catch them a little further up the road looking lost.

I then spent the afternoon trying to find out which bank we could open an account with the documentation we had available and would also not charge us monthly which seems much harder to avoid with US current accounts (which they call checking accounts because you can use checks with them, which they actually spell like that) than with UK accounts. Emily again got some pictures in the sun. These are not included here as she put them on her facebook story which then deleted them, you'll have to imagine.

We also found our poor jetlagged brains had missed the main light switch and we could stop complaining about how dim the light in the centre of the room was as it seems that's primarily decoration attached to the fan rather than meant as a functional light.

We again got doordash and this time went to bed at almost 9pm!

It's now Saturday morning, we have a COVID test booked for Monday and Emily is annoyed I've spent so long writing this blog.

Us in our little garden this morning