I woke up at 4:05am, 25 minutes before my alarm, and decided to let Petros (the Indonesian mouse who is currently a kind of a ‘mascot’ for the charity I work for) sleep while I got ready to head to the bus stop. Only time for a quick shower and a check that I really had packed everything – coffee would have to wait for the airport. Besides, adrenaline was running so who needs caffeine?
At that hour of the day there were no delays on the motorway, so I had lots of time to have a latte venti or venti latte or whatever the largest latte Starbucks makes is called, and the 2.5 hours till boarding time went relatively quickly. Note to those who travel - online it said that I had aisle seats, but when I checked in she said I did not. This has never happened to me before. Fortunately she was able to change them. Flight uneventful, but I don’t recommend the gluten-free option as the bread tasted like compressed sawdust. Not a bad option if you like tasteless apples (as well as sawdust), which seemed to be their substitute for sweet things.
First surprise was US customs, where I decided I should finally admit that I didn’t need my green card anymore as I didn’t live in the states and I had already exceeded the 1 year length of time when I could be absent from the US. “Why didn’t you surrender it when you left the United States?” I was asked brusquely. (I like the choice of words – surrender!). “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I answered, whereupon I was finger-printed (all fingers, both hands, on a snazzy green-lit panel – no more black inky fingers!) and photographed, and marched off to the dreaded ‘back room’. There I was told to sit and wait with various other nefarious characters most of whom seemed to be trying to sneak into the US. I know this because I was the only person in there at first, and all these people came after me and got seen first – a tactic they use I’m sure to increase the feeling that I had done something very, very wrong and should be very, very worried. Fortunately, I ended up being interviewed by a nice customs man, who told me that I had a choice of either abandoning my green card (another nice choice of words!) or going to court, and that if I chose to abandon it I could have a new one should I ever decide to live in the states again, whereas if I went to court it would basically be seen as an act of aggression as far as I could tell. Furthermore, abandoning it would only take about half an hour of being interviewed and filling in paperwork, versus...well...I didn’t get him to give me all the details of the time it would take to go to court!
The rest of the time went comparatively well, with a 2-hour delay in Detroit airport, where there is nothing to do. By this time I had been on the move for about 16 hours after only 5 hours sleep, so I didn’t really want to do much, except lie down which was not possible due to the arm rests on the seat/benches, no doubt designed to keep people from lying down. The good news is that they fixed the problem with the brakes that caused the delay, and I arrived in Memphis to a warm if humid evening, and a chance to stand outside the locked gates of Graceland and have my picture taken by some obliging Canadians (obliging Canadians being a bit of a tautology I suppose!). Petros, the IFES ‘mascot’ and I then took a pink stretch limo to a nearby restaurant known for bbq ribs. I had an enormous mound of pulled pork (very tender strips of pork in bbq sauce) and home-made
molasses baked beans and cole slaw, for something like 6 pounds. The limo was free (well, $1 tip each way) and although the restaurant was only a mile or so away, it was down one of those typical roads in the US where there is sometimes sidewalk/pavement and sometimes not, and most of the stores were closed and it was getting dark, and I wasn’t sure about the neighbourhood, so...why not go in a pink limo?! 
On a more serious note – I’m here to keep in touch with donors to the charity I work for. The first meeting with the board of a ‘trust’ went really well – I really enjoyed meeting the people and chatting about the charity. A great break from computer work, but also it is good to see that the proposals and reports I write really do have an impact on those who read them!!
Now we are sitting in one of the board rooms with some time before we are driven to the airport. Next stop, Grand Rapids. Will try to keep blogging, should time and internet connections allow.
At that hour of the day there were no delays on the motorway, so I had lots of time to have a latte venti or venti latte or whatever the largest latte Starbucks makes is called, and the 2.5 hours till boarding time went relatively quickly. Note to those who travel - online it said that I had aisle seats, but when I checked in she said I did not. This has never happened to me before. Fortunately she was able to change them. Flight uneventful, but I don’t recommend the gluten-free option as the bread tasted like compressed sawdust. Not a bad option if you like tasteless apples (as well as sawdust), which seemed to be their substitute for sweet things.
First surprise was US customs, where I decided I should finally admit that I didn’t need my green card anymore as I didn’t live in the states and I had already exceeded the 1 year length of time when I could be absent from the US. “Why didn’t you surrender it when you left the United States?” I was asked brusquely. (I like the choice of words – surrender!). “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I answered, whereupon I was finger-printed (all fingers, both hands, on a snazzy green-lit panel – no more black inky fingers!) and photographed, and marched off to the dreaded ‘back room’. There I was told to sit and wait with various other nefarious characters most of whom seemed to be trying to sneak into the US. I know this because I was the only person in there at first, and all these people came after me and got seen first – a tactic they use I’m sure to increase the feeling that I had done something very, very wrong and should be very, very worried. Fortunately, I ended up being interviewed by a nice customs man, who told me that I had a choice of either abandoning my green card (another nice choice of words!) or going to court, and that if I chose to abandon it I could have a new one should I ever decide to live in the states again, whereas if I went to court it would basically be seen as an act of aggression as far as I could tell. Furthermore, abandoning it would only take about half an hour of being interviewed and filling in paperwork, versus...well...I didn’t get him to give me all the details of the time it would take to go to court!
The rest of the time went comparatively well, with a 2-hour delay in Detroit airport, where there is nothing to do. By this time I had been on the move for about 16 hours after only 5 hours sleep, so I didn’t really want to do much, except lie down which was not possible due to the arm rests on the seat/benches, no doubt designed to keep people from lying down. The good news is that they fixed the problem with the brakes that caused the delay, and I arrived in Memphis to a warm if humid evening, and a chance to stand outside the locked gates of Graceland and have my picture taken by some obliging Canadians (obliging Canadians being a bit of a tautology I suppose!). Petros, the IFES ‘mascot’ and I then took a pink stretch limo to a nearby restaurant known for bbq ribs. I had an enormous mound of pulled pork (very tender strips of pork in bbq sauce) and home-made
molasses baked beans and cole slaw, for something like 6 pounds. The limo was free (well, $1 tip each way) and although the restaurant was only a mile or so away, it was down one of those typical roads in the US where there is sometimes sidewalk/pavement and sometimes not, and most of the stores were closed and it was getting dark, and I wasn’t sure about the neighbourhood, so...why not go in a pink limo?! 
On a more serious note – I’m here to keep in touch with donors to the charity I work for. The first meeting with the board of a ‘trust’ went really well – I really enjoyed meeting the people and chatting about the charity. A great break from computer work, but also it is good to see that the proposals and reports I write really do have an impact on those who read them!!
Now we are sitting in one of the board rooms with some time before we are driven to the airport. Next stop, Grand Rapids. Will try to keep blogging, should time and internet connections allow.
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