I didn't really get any sleep during my last night in Vancouver, didn't help that 2 lads in the dormitory were checking out around 5am. Still checked out about 8:20 and caught the shuttle to the airport, which I was quite lucky to catch as the hostel told me completely the wrong place to catch it from. Anyway I got checked in fine even though the flight number was completely different to the one on my ticket.
Once you check in at Vancouver airport to a flight to the US you go into a special US only section that is fenced off from everywhere else (i.e. no duty frees) but it does also mean that you clear customs and immigration before take off which is quite handy. Now the cheeky bit, the $10CAN airport improvement fee, would have been more if I hadn't been flying to the US!
After the customs/immigration desk I had to open up my smaller checked bag for some form of swab test, don't know what they were looking for, but it seems strange that in Miami they X-Ray all your bags whereas here they just occasionally ask people to open some!
I then sat around for a couple of hours and heard a very amusing conversation from some American to his son whilst I was waiting to get some doughnuts from Tim Hortons. It went along these lines:
Dad: What the hell are these Canadians doing working here, this is American soil.
Son: No dad, that's just embassies, we're still in Canada, just we've cleared immigration and customs to make it like an internal flight when we land.
Dad: You're wrong son, and I bet you all these prices here are in US Dollars as we're in America now (they were actually in Canadian dollars).
So he was actually wrong on all three counts. Landed in St Louis a little early, the temperature was over 100 Fahrenheit during the day there, so it was a little hot. I should also mention that the baggage claim at St Louis is a joke, you can literally walk in off the street and grab yourself a bag, I kid you not.
Fortunately the hotel I'd booked had a free shuttle so no problems getting there at all. The front desk man was quite a local and seemed annoyed by the fact that he had to serve customers and this impinged on his ability to watch the NASCAR racing (or rather parade of cars in a circle) on the lobby TV. The room was great, large amount of TV channels and lovely, lovely aircon.
I then decided I'd go and get some dinner at the 24hr diner next door to the hotel, except it wasn't 24hr, it was closed. So I decided to walk about a bit and find somewhere else to get food. It wasn't difficult to find anywhere as there was just one road from the hotel to anywhere, but it was very long, four lanes and had quite a lot of police cars driving along it (this due to the fact that the police station was on the same road). Now given that all the food emporiums were on the other side of the road presented a great problem as the nearest crosswalk was about 1/2 a mile up the road. This normally wouldn't be a problem but despite it being 8:30 at night it was still 88 Fahrenheit. I eventually settled on Hardee's which is a great burger joint that only sells big burgers made from Aberdeen Angus Beef. For $6.45 you can get a 2/3lb double bacon cheeseburger meal.
Next morning for the first time since I've been travelling, I was able to watch the Grand Prix. Then I just headed down to the airport. And now the reason why you don't ever want to fly out of St Louis, after check in you give your bags to TSA who scan them all (behind a closed screen), they also have the right to break open your locks should they wish to check your bags. Yes they can break open your locks and then they'll just re-seal them with cable ties and leave you a little note explaining that they can do it (you're also not entitled to claim a new lock as they're doing it for your safety). Now in Miami they actually called you after your bag had been scanned to open it and then they'd inspect it. Not so in St Louis, and the obvious fact that it's all done behind a closed screen means you don't know they've broken your lock off until you arrive at your destination (fortunately they only broke the crappy cheap padlock off my shoe and book bag that I bought in Miami to comply with AAs pathetic weight restrictions).
Anyway the flight was pleasant enough, just like the flight to St Louis there was food but it was just a buffet bag that you picked up when you got on (still better than the Miami to Toronto offerings), and there was also an inflight movie, but it was Star Trek Nemesis which is an awful awful film.
So I'm now in lovely sunny Santa Monica, one block from the beach in probably the classiest looking hostel so far, but more on that another time.
Posted by Alexis at July 7, 2003 06:57 PM