The day started quite reasonably with a 06:30 taxi to the airport for a 09:00 flight to San Francisco via Newark.
Birmingham airport was very busy, but I had bought the Premier Access for $89, so I walked up the priority lane, past the massive crowds and did security really quickly. It’s like the really cheap version of business class. 🙂
The flight to Newark as delayed by about 15 minutes, Â but apart from that it was fairly straight forward, talking a little over 7 hours of air time.
Using Newark as the first port of entry to the USA can be a bad idea if you have a connecting flight. You have to go through all the usual airport security to “leave” the airport, then recheck your bags for your domestic flight. The reason I bought the Premier Access was to speed up this section of the journey, but it turns out is doesn’t really help. Since we were 15 minutes late and I originally had a 2 hour layover, which was really 1:45 when you consider boarding close times, I resigned myself to missing the next flight. Somehow the stars aligned and I made it as boarding was beginning. Amazing!
The flight from Newark to San Francisco was hard. The flight itself was fine but the tiredness really started to sink in. The last hour was torture. I must have gone to the toilet about 10 times to move my legs. I knew I was just over-tired, but I started feel a little frantic. We eventually landed, and not having to go through US security was great.
The next challenge was trying not to have a fight with the hotel about the hotel shuttle. I was tired and they were very unhelpful. Rather than escalate the argument and get deported, I gave up and got a taxi for $44…
I got to the hotel, dumped my stuff, scrubbed myself clean and went out for some food with Lucas Jellema. From there it was back to bed for an early night. I slept from 21:30 to 01:30 local time, then dozed my way through to the next day.
Tomorrow is the Oracle Applications User Experience (#OAUX) strategy day…
Cheers
Tim…
