tiredThe flight to Philadelphia wasn't too bad. I was sat right at the very back of the plane in the middle section and at the end of the row. It turned out that the other two seats remained empty so later on, I lay down on the entire row which was nice. It was really bumpy though, there was some intense turbulance. It felt like I was on a rollercoaster ride and was quite scary.
I was really anxious over Immigration, primarily because I intended to stay for quite a few weeks and also because I've been over so often. I hoped that not visiting for the past year would make it look better. It was horrendously busy though. I think three flights all landed at the same time, so the queues were extremely long. I joined one queue which did not seem to be moving at all, although the ones on either side were getting shorter. I thought that did not bode well, as it was probably due to the person on the desk being very thorough. All of the desks designated for American citizens were clear, so we got moved down on to those.
When it was my turn, the man looked very serious and officious which made me more nervous. He asked what the purpose of my visit was so I said sightseeing and visiting friends, which made him ask if my friends were English or American. Then he asked how many days I was staying, which threw me a little because I wasn't sure of the amount in days. I said that my return flight was on November 4th and I thought it was about 40 days or something. He then asked me how much money I had, so I said how much cash I'd got but then explained that I also had a credit card. He asked if I just had the one credit card, and when I said yes, he explained that the reason he was asking was that he'd recently been on a trip to Brazil and had an emergency while he was there. He had three credit cards, but only one of them worked so he didn't want me to have the same problem. It was not the response I was expecting! I thanked him for the advice and he recommended that I use my card as soon as possible on a little something just to make sure that it worked. I asked him if he'd had a good trip apart from the emergency and he said he had. He stamped my passport, told me to have a good stay and that was it!
I'd landed at 1.45 and my flight to Boston was at 3.15 which I'd expected would be plenty of time. I didn't expect three flights to land all at once though. It was 2.45 by the time I got to security and there was a huge queue again there. My flight was supposed to be boarding then! It took 15 minutes or so to get through there, and then I had to find the gate. Thankfully, when I checked the board for that, I found out the flight was delayed by half an hour so that gave me plenty of time to get down there. I'd kind of expected it would be delayed, it always seems to be the case there. It wasn't till 4pm when we started boarding and then nearly another hour before we actually took off. I finally landed in Boston at about 5.45, over an hour later than intended but greatly relieved.
So, that was my journey. And once I've recovered from it, I can start having fun!
