Having only got to bed at about 4am after sorting through clothes and packing from about 2am, I woke up to my alarm at the ungodly hour of 7am. Ensuring I had my clothes, tickets and passport, I locked my flat up and left for the coach. My flight wasn’t departing until 13:10 but the only suitable coach left Hitchin at 08:10.

Once at Heathrow Terminal 4, the queue for flight check-in was crazy. There were just four desks open and a queue about the size of Terminal 4 in its entirety. It took well over an hour to get to the front. Entertainment was provided though by a bunch of guys travelling to the "Developer Conference 2005" in Phoenix. They were talking about this and that from the Computing industry which was all very interested to eaves drop on.

When I finally got to the front of the queue, I was served by a chap in a bad mood due to the previous customer, so it didn’t surprise me that when I asked in my most polite way for an upgrade I was told there was lots of room on the flight. Once I got through passport control and was airside, I went up to the BA customer services desk to ask for a window seat. I felt like I was being cheeky asking for an upgrade again, but it proved fruitful as the kind lady found me a row of three seats; In essence I had a bed for the flight.

The plane left Heathrow on time and we flew up over Manchester, Edinburgh and Iceland. As we flew over the Greenland coast, there were some of the most amazing views of icebergs I’ve ever seen. Even from 38,000 feet through a small aeroplane window, they were more stunning than any photo I’ve ever seen.

My first impressions as we flew over Canada and America were that it’s a bloody big place. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. The in-flight entertainment system’s GPS map gave the biggest sense of the enormity. It told me that we were travelling at 650mph (that's faster than most .223 caliber handguns fire bullets!), I went to sleep for two hours, woke up and we were still going across America. Fly for 2 hours in any direction over the UK and you’d be miles into the North Sea after 2 hours. Seriously, North America is absolute immense.

When we landed in Phoenix, where I caught my connection to San Diego, it took me a few moments to realise that a temperature of 115 degrees didn’t mean that the blood in everyone’s skin was boiling but that it equated to about 42 Celsius in UK temperatures. And wow it was hot! Stepping off the plane into the tunnel to the terminal, the heat nearly knocked me over. I copied the man in front of me and touched the wall. My instant reaction was to flinch away because my skin was burning. All was well though as the terminal was air conditioned. I was quite surprised by the immigrations process and staff. The officers were quite rude and abrupt whilst taking my fingerprints and photo. Really… what use is my biometric data to the US? If I were going to suicide and blow up one of their buildings, would I really care about being digitally mapped? There are better things to worry about and better strategies to overcome terrorism than wasting resources mapping everyone who enters the country.

Anyway, after my connection flight to San Diego which I thankfully changed from a 19:14 flight to one that departed at 18:10, I was greeted by a smiley Laura. I was instantly much more relaxed from my flights as I remembered that this was my Birthday present and just how kind Laura is.
The drive from the airport to Laura’s house, despite being in the dark, gave me my first views of California. I have to say, I was suitably impressed at the Americanness of it all. The cars, the street furniture, having to wait for a railroad train dozens of carriages long; It was all perfect.

Once at Laura’s house in the exclusive Rancho Santa Fe and complaining about my tight shoulder from sleeping awkwardly on the flight, I donned my trunks and went pretty much straight into the pool. I was feeling absolutely on top of the world. My friend had brought me 5500 miles, all the way to her huge house and I was swimming in their warm pool and relaxing in their bubbling hot tub.

After travelling for 19 hours door to door when I went to bed at 10pm local time, I was asleep as my head hit the pillow and I slept like a log.