Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Chasing the Sun, the longest day of our lives

We arose at 4am local Dublin time to be in the Airport for 5am. We arrived in San Francisco at 7pm PST/local time and got to bed at 11pm, some 30 hours after getting up that morning. It has clearly been the longest day of our lives.

Our flight wasn’t until 9am BST, but we where advised to arrive some 4 hours early due to the heightened security alert of late. Unfortunately someone forgot to inform the local ground staff in Dublin as check in didn’t open until the usual 6am. There really wasn’t much signs of extra security apart from Duty Free being delivered to the plane and all hand luggage being searched. Security was performed in a very non-treating fashion, very comfortable and re-assuring. The flight, CO23 from Dublin to Newark, New Jersey was fine, but we where let down somewhat as the aircraft wasn’t up to the same quality as last years. It was a basic 757, without personal in-seat LCD tvs and game system. Instead we shared common overhead TVs which showed Ice Age 2, which we’d both already seen.

We arrived in New Jersey after the 7.5 hour flight at 11am EST/local time. The area is located beside close to Manhattan, so we where treated to seeing the impressive New York City skyline. We’ll be back next week to play there! Our connecting flight to San Francisco, CO41 wasn’t until 3:30pm EST, so we passed the time window shopping and eating.

The second flight took off a little late, but some 6 hours later we arrive in San Francisco around 7pm PST. The airport, somewhat like the city, is stuck in a 1960’s time warp, very retro. Once bags arrived and we made our way into the City on the BART (Bay area rapid transit), taking the Red BART in the direction of Dublin of all places!

Walking from Powel Station to Union Square and onto to hotel was very quick, and provided a glimpse of what San Francisco is going to offer us over the next week. Our hotel is great, our room, on the 12th floor, overlooks Union Square. It was almost 9pm PST when we checked in, dumped our bags, picked up some food and headed to bed.

It’s been a very long day; we are both very excited, tired and need sleep. Here’s to the start of our adventure!