PERSONAL: Made it to Minneapolis

What a pleasant trip to Minnesota we’ve had.

It all started when we logged onto Qantas the night before our flight and discovered our Frequent Flyer points upgrade had come through – we were upgraded to Business class.

So as you can imagine, the flight over was fantastic. In fact everything about our trip, starting from the taxi ride to the airport, to the great staff in the Qantas Club, to the extremely pleasant flight attendants was a pleasure. The flight was delayed so we were a little worried about our changeover in LA given that we were down to just over an hour to make it through immigration and transfer over to Terminal 2 and check-in with Northwest.

Not that we should have worried. The ground staff were fantastic and practically walked us through immigration (max 10 minutes to get through) and then almost walked us over to Terminal 2. The Northwest staff helped us with the self-checkin (even though it is supposed to be self checkin :-) and found our luggage which we’d Re-checked over at Terminal 1. The nice guy at the checkin counter got us seats together (even though most of the people were already on the plane and it was about to take off…) and we made it through to Minneapolis no probs.

Although I hadn’t mentioned my fears to Michele, I was quietly preparing myself in case our luggage hadn’t made it onto the plane. Again, not to worry, our luggage came out almost immediately, courtesy of the priority tags (that I assume Qantas had put on them).

Now, I know they probably handle this situation all the time, so it is most likely a normal day for them, but I feel compelled to say how pleasant the whole experience was. So often, we only write about things when it has been a bad experience, so what a joy to write about great service all the way through.

James, Jackie and Jemma (or 3Js as we call them) picked us up at the airport and took us home via the local mall (we had to get in some early Mallage) to pick up dinner. The biggest shock was ofcourse the overwhelming choice on offer (even at a local ‘small’ mall). There must have been over 50 different brands of chips for starters, and the range of Coke flavours will be best discovered one a day (we’re here for 7 weeks…)

3Js’ place is great. Nice and spacious, with a great view out their windows of non stop Oak trees. Reminds me of the opening scene in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ where Jodie Foster is running through the forest at Quantico (although Virginia is a little south east of here ofcourse).

Since we arrived at night, we stayed up for a few hours and then went to bed, had a great sleep and woke up the next morning. It’s early afternoon as I write this now and I feel great. I’m not a great traveller, so jet lag will most likely hit in the next day or so, but for now I feel full of energy (and slightly euphoric – this often happens just before jet lag hits). Also, since I’m not ‘connected’ as yet I haven’t been able to log into work and check emails – there’s a wonderful feeling of freedom at this point. New country, new place, new climate {s}, no email, no work. Holiday. I’m the luckiest guy I know.