This was a short night. Before I went to London, I had made a few rudimentary preparations for this next trip, but the bulk of stuff still had to be done. After I arrived in the Kirkstall Brewery at 22:30, I quickly unpacked my small baggage and began sorting the things I needed to take with me. After midnight I realised that it would be good to do some laundry - fortunately the dryer works very well, and at 3:00 everything was ready. Then a short sleep, and I get up at 6:00 for the final preparations.
The taxi picks me up at 8:00, and then I spend a bit of time at the Leeds-Bradford-Airport business lounge. A rainy morning in Leeds, but as we take off, there is one of those sunny spells that are so frequently here. Rain also in Amsterdam, as I wait for my connecting flight. A very nice KLM business lounge - finally I am getting something for my Platinum Elite flying status! Free champagne, and a very nice noodle salad from the buffet. Then I board the Northwest Airlines flight 55 to Minneapolis. I have been on this flight already several times in the past. A quite dated DC-10 flies here. Unfortunately I did not get a window seat this time, just an isle seat in the center block.
This trip had been just spontaneously being decided two weeks ago, as the air fare was available at an acceptable price.
My US green card had been expired a month ago, but I had applied for a new one over the internet. Still, I expected some difficulties at the Immigration office at Minneapolis airport. I had inquired earlier at the US Consulate in London per phone how to proceed - and was told I should have a documentation that I had been last time in the US within 180 days. So I brought with me my old receipts from the flight I had done over Christmas. The officer is very friendly, but they obviously do not have this case very often. He sends me to another office, where they look up in their computers my filing status. And indeed, they find my filing that I had done just about 5 weeks ago. They still look a bit worried that they might do something that would be againts the regulations... but then they let me pass. Very friendly, no problem, a bit hesitating since this seems quite unusual... especially because I will be in the US only for a few days, and at my next reentry I still will not have a valid green card... but they let me go.
Once again I am at the Minneapolis airport where I had been quite often in the past years. This is one of the hubs of Northwest Airlines, and since I was always taking them for business trips to the East Coast, I ended up here quite often. I expect to meet accidentally some of my former colleagues, since they often do have business at the East Coast, and also often have a stopover here. Nice relaxed atmosphere in the main lobby where all the stores are. I visit Wilsons Leather, my favorite - I often have found some useful travel accessoirs here that I had seen nowhere else. And right, also this time I find ssomething for what I was looking for already for a long time: a sholder pad for one of my bags, to avoid it sliding down when I wear it.
I head to the Northwest Business Lounge again, to have a few more free goodies before I continue on my last leg of this trip. Great - here is even free wireless access - so I can upload this latest blog entry. And so I wait for the boarding call to the last trip leg - flight NW309 to Los Angeles.
