Finally the day had come for Wendy, Marco, Igor and me to go to the USA for the first time, a trip we started making plans for almost a year before. Igor and I had got up at 6:15 AM in order to pack the last bits of our luggage. Mum and dad came to our place at 8:15 to go with us to the airport (Schiphol, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and send us off.

The minibus was supposed to pick up Wendy and Marco around the same time, but the driver overslept so we had to make other arrangements. With some improvisation everything turned out just fine and we were at the airport in time after all. Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:30 AM but was delayed due to problems with the air conditioning. We took off at about 12:15 PM, local (Dutch) time.

We arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX for short) at about 11:00 PM Dutch time, which was now about 1:50 PM local time. We were quite surprised by the whole customs-process, for which we already had to fill in some forms during the flight. It took about an hour to go through customs and pick up our luggage. After that we took a bus that dropped us off at Dollar Rent-a-car to pick up our 'vehicle', a Mitsubishi Montero Sport. Igor drove us to the Wyndham at LAX Hotel.

After checking in and freshing up we drove to the Santa Monica Mountains to explore the area where we intended to stay the next few days. We also went for dinner at McDonalds' somewhere along the Freeway. We were surprised to find that over here we were supposed to fix our own sodas and there was no mayonnaise to go with our fries (just ketchup). Little did we know we would have to get used to 'our way' once we got back home. After this 'dinner' we went back to the hotel, where we watched some television (we wouldn't have much opportunity to do that the next few weeks) and finally got some sleep.