Sue in the USA

First of all, Happy New Year and all the best for 2007. Time sure flies, doesn’t it?

After an 11 hour flight from Amsterdam I have arrived safe and sound in good old US of A on January 1st 2007.

My parents took me to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and my bags were checked at 9am. I went through customs at 11am and the time in between was spend with my parents at the airport, basically shopping and drinking coffee.

My flight took off from Schiphol Airport January 1st at 13.23 local time. The flight went pretty smooth. And for the first time ever I was actually able to sleep a bit on plane. I arrived at LAX at 3pm local time. I had expected to be able to queue up at the Permanent Residents/US Citizens line. But they directed me to the Vistors line anyhow. The Permanent Resident line will be reserved for my next trip (whenever that will be).

I knew I was in Los Angeles when I spotted Hugh Laurie (House MD) and Sean Austin (LOTR) in the line in front of me. Why Sean Austin was in the visitors line is still beyond me, as I figured he’s from the US. What amazed me is that everyone just let them be. Only a couple of Dutch ladies were whispering about them. Don’t ask my why they whispered though. It was in Dutch plus they were standing directly behind the two actors (and then came me).

I have only been here for 5 full days now, it seems longer though. Part of me is still having a hard time believing that I am here to stay. I guess I won’t realize it until I have my own apartment, my own car and a job and will start building my life here.

The past couple of days I have spent arranging to receive a new Social Security card, opening a bank account, buying a laptop and getting a cell phone and navigation system. And I have used most of the time to relax from all that I have had to take care of the past 6 weeks and get adjusted to the time zone. Next week I will start looking for a job, an apartment and my own car.

Today (Saturday) I spend driving to the IKEA in Costa Mesa and drive around a part of Orange County (Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Orange, Fullerton and Anaheim). Tomorrow I will drive to Burbank, Sherman Oaks and the beach cities. I want to figure out which area I like best.

The IKEA was one fest of recognition. It really is the same everywhere. Plus I am able to pretty much buy ‘own’ things back such as my couch, my chair, my salon table, floor lamp and even my dinner table. That is so funny.

BTW, my cell phone has a camera. Yes. I took some pictures with it already. With little problem though…I am not able to get them off the camera. The sales person told me to just connect a USB cable…well that did not work. Apparently I also need to buy additional software. Well, I’ll save that for later. It’s not such a big deal. I do have another digital photo camera but of course the software for that camera is in a box that I have shipped out and won’t get here for another 8 weeks or so. Oh well, until that time this web log will remain picture-less.