This morning faffing is limited as our flight is at lunch time, so we pack the car while Al makes a coffee. We then take photos of us and the house and say goodbye to the dogs. We drop the trusty Evolve trolley (which has been strapped to the roof of Jan's truck for all this time) at Summer's mum's on the way to the airport and enjoy our last views of the valley.
At the airport we check our bags in and are relieved that they are somehow within the weight limit (despite us having bought more wine and beer wort in Canada). It’s hard to say our goodbyes as we’ve had such a brilliant time here. It's been a brilliant experience spending quality time with the Canadian Penningtons, we've enjoyed sharing good music and the great outdoors together.
We’re rushed into the next part of our trip though as we are returning to the States and so need to go through immigration again. Maybe something flagged on our passports or tickets because every piece of luggage and us is searched! Firstly every piece of our hold luggage is X-rayed and one piece opened to be swabbed for bad things. Then once our hand luggage comes out of the scanner it too is thoroughly swabbed and we go through an initial scan before a full-body scan!
Passing these tests it’s then passport control where our passports are looked at intently and we’re questioned for at least 10 minutes. The questions start on our reasons for visiting Canada and America, and dwell on why we are returning to America. He's suspicious about our lives in Egypt, but I show the official our ticket which proves we have a flight to leave America back to London which pleases him.
A favourite question of customs officials we’ve found is “Is there anything you’ll be leaving in America?” We answer that we are leaving “cushion covers” as we’ve brought these as gifts from the UKNova crowd. The official seems perplexed and asks if these are “material or camel leather?” to which we answer “Egyptian cotton” (Duh!). He still seems unsure by all this and Scott tries to help him out by saying, “They have pictures of camels and pyramids on them,” but this doesn’t help and he is on the phone asking a colleague “Is there any room in the Secondary?” and we realise that he plans to take us in for secondary questioning. It turns out there is someone already in there, so he asks us why we first moved to Egypt and when we explain it is for work and we are teachers he relaxes and lets us through. Afterwards we joke together about all this and how non-suspicious we actually are, but we wish we’d had the courage to respond with a sarcastic comment that highlighted the immigration guy's complete suspicion of anything connected with the Middle East.
After all this we manage to grab a meal before the flight, but as it is only a quick journey we only have time to read a few chapters of our books and write half a blog post before we land.
Back in the “land of the free” we collect our bags and lug them onto the free shuttle that will take us to the hire car. We booked the cheapest we could get through Expedia but it turns out a “full size” is a massive car and so we try to downgrade to something smaller. Ironically it will actually be more expensive if we want a smaller car, so we settle for what we’ve got. The size must be pretty big though as we manage to fit our two huge hold cases and our hand luggage case in the boot without a problem!
We navigate ourselves out of the airport and along a few freeways until we’re on the I-55 which will take us to Pontiac, Illinois (the State of Ding!). We want to stop off to grab something to eat before we arrive at Steve’s and eventually find signs to a Macdonald's at the other end of a small town just off the main the road. We’ve stumbled on Coal City and are suddenly in the classic America we’ve always thought about; arse-end of nowhere, nothing going on, nobody going in or out kind of place! It’s brilliant! Before leaving, we call in at a liquor store to pick up some beer and decide to try a couple. The first, Dogfish Head, is a micro-brewery featured in a documentary we saw in NS. The other, Old Style, is advertised everywhere in Illinois so we thought we'd give it a go.
We arrive at Steve’s for Novapalooza 2010, and find a load of people already there and the drinks flowing. It’s great to meet these people, most of whom who we’ve known online and on Skype for around four years, and they are just as we expected so we all get along great.
We spend the evening drinking and chatting with Steve and his son Nick, Jackie and Todd, Deeds and Cathy, William, Justin, Matt, Derek and Chimp and Cathy.
At the airport we check our bags in and are relieved that they are somehow within the weight limit (despite us having bought more wine and beer wort in Canada). It’s hard to say our goodbyes as we’ve had such a brilliant time here. It's been a brilliant experience spending quality time with the Canadian Penningtons, we've enjoyed sharing good music and the great outdoors together.
We’re rushed into the next part of our trip though as we are returning to the States and so need to go through immigration again. Maybe something flagged on our passports or tickets because every piece of luggage and us is searched! Firstly every piece of our hold luggage is X-rayed and one piece opened to be swabbed for bad things. Then once our hand luggage comes out of the scanner it too is thoroughly swabbed and we go through an initial scan before a full-body scan!
Passing these tests it’s then passport control where our passports are looked at intently and we’re questioned for at least 10 minutes. The questions start on our reasons for visiting Canada and America, and dwell on why we are returning to America. He's suspicious about our lives in Egypt, but I show the official our ticket which proves we have a flight to leave America back to London which pleases him.
A favourite question of customs officials we’ve found is “Is there anything you’ll be leaving in America?” We answer that we are leaving “cushion covers” as we’ve brought these as gifts from the UKNova crowd. The official seems perplexed and asks if these are “material or camel leather?” to which we answer “Egyptian cotton” (Duh!). He still seems unsure by all this and Scott tries to help him out by saying, “They have pictures of camels and pyramids on them,” but this doesn’t help and he is on the phone asking a colleague “Is there any room in the Secondary?” and we realise that he plans to take us in for secondary questioning. It turns out there is someone already in there, so he asks us why we first moved to Egypt and when we explain it is for work and we are teachers he relaxes and lets us through. Afterwards we joke together about all this and how non-suspicious we actually are, but we wish we’d had the courage to respond with a sarcastic comment that highlighted the immigration guy's complete suspicion of anything connected with the Middle East.
After all this we manage to grab a meal before the flight, but as it is only a quick journey we only have time to read a few chapters of our books and write half a blog post before we land.
Back in the “land of the free” we collect our bags and lug them onto the free shuttle that will take us to the hire car. We booked the cheapest we could get through Expedia but it turns out a “full size” is a massive car and so we try to downgrade to something smaller. Ironically it will actually be more expensive if we want a smaller car, so we settle for what we’ve got. The size must be pretty big though as we manage to fit our two huge hold cases and our hand luggage case in the boot without a problem!
We navigate ourselves out of the airport and along a few freeways until we’re on the I-55 which will take us to Pontiac, Illinois (the State of Ding!). We want to stop off to grab something to eat before we arrive at Steve’s and eventually find signs to a Macdonald's at the other end of a small town just off the main the road. We’ve stumbled on Coal City and are suddenly in the classic America we’ve always thought about; arse-end of nowhere, nothing going on, nobody going in or out kind of place! It’s brilliant! Before leaving, we call in at a liquor store to pick up some beer and decide to try a couple. The first, Dogfish Head, is a micro-brewery featured in a documentary we saw in NS. The other, Old Style, is advertised everywhere in Illinois so we thought we'd give it a go.
We spend the evening drinking and chatting with Steve and his son Nick, Jackie and Todd, Deeds and Cathy, William, Justin, Matt, Derek and Chimp and Cathy.
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