Destination: Seattle! Arrival

Our flight made excellent time and, even though we had left Iceland a little behind schedule, we landed in Seattle early. We were almost the last people off the plane, putting us essentially last in the line to go through customs. Since David obviously doesn't have an American passport, I waited with him in the 'everybody else' line. Things went pretty quickly and soon it was our turn.

We each went to our own custom's agent. Both of us answered the question, 'Are you travelling with anyone?' in the affirmative. Both of us then got the question, 'Are you thinking of getting married?' I wasn't prepared for that one! We got two reasonably similar lectures about making sure we followed all the rules if we were going to get married. Finally, we got past the first hurdle and headed down to pick up our bags.

After collecting our luggage, we headed through the gauntlet of various US Government Officials. The first guy also wanted to know if we were getting married. I thought he was the one that usually has the drug sniffing dog, so I was again surprised by this sudden interest in our relationship status. He made some marks on our papers and sent us on to the next line.

In that line there were two stops. First one guy looks at the papers, ask some of the questions on it (perhaps to check if our answers match), marks up the papers, and gives them back. The next guy basically just looks at all of the marks on the papers and sends us on our way. That last guy is also the one that can send you to the 'open all your suitcases and waste a bunch of time' security station, as I learned on my last trip. Fortunately, that didn't happen again.

One clearing all of customs and security, we delivered our luggage back to airport staff. I have never really understood this particular step in the process. Why can't we just take our bags with us on the shuttle train? Especially when there are so few people waiting in line to ride it. At least they don't seem to lose luggage in that step.

Once in the main terminal, we headed to pick up our luggage and meet the welcome party. Due to a misunderstanding (thanks Dad), there was no welcome party. Our bags arrived and I reluctantly used my Norwegian phone to call the family and organize getting picked up. Dad was waiting nearby and we were finally out of the airport!

Mom, Sonya, and Tyler were waiting for us at an Italian restaurant in West Seattle. There we engaged in sorely missed family conversational antics, including hilarious stories and imitating Dad. Somewhere in there we managed to order way too much food and had to pass on dessert. Mom was loaning us her car and had to catch a ferry, so we raced off to meet the boat.

Since Dad didn't want to shock us on the first night of our visit with the state of our house, he had decided to put us up in bed and breakfast. The bed there was a welcome sight and we were very appreciative that Dad made the effort for us. We crashed early, and woke up around 4am to watch a little cable TV (we found a Swedish cooking show, of all things). We got up again around 9:30 and enjoyed a pretty excellent breakfast.

Since Dad was still not quite ready for us after breakfast, we ditched our luggage at the house and headed for Southcenter. While we should have been studying, we wandered around the mall for several hours, drinking coffee, buying pants and a new computer, and acquiring a US cell phone for David. We got back to Dad's with just enough time to shower and head off to a much anticipated Hanukah dinner with Vicki and family. The following couple of days were filled with studying and avoiding studying for our mid-term test.