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After all my travels around the world, I have finally decided to make a trip to the US. My first time to see this vast country. I am starting my trip in Chicago,  hire a car and head down to New Orleans, stopping off along the way. Always had a great interest in the deep south, looking forward to seeing it; the French quarter and how the city has recovered from Katrina over the years. A few days here, then head out east to South Carolina, find out about places around the Civil war, experience some of the small towns along the way.  After that, a trip to Nashville, where if the days work out, will get to meet up with a good friend of mine from PNG, Charlye is returning to the US in early September after a number of months working with Handicap International in Cambodia.

After my tour around these areas, it is back to Chicago, and to spend a day catching up with a lot of my relations who all moved there many years ago. Many of them I have only seen once or twice. This I am looking forward to, as I am working on the family tree, so will give me a great chance to catch up and to fill in a lot of the blanks along the way.

I have got my Iphone unlocked(all legal, Vodafone were able to help me out), so now just looking to see who is the best deal in the US with a data package and Sim only. Will be handy, can use it over there and not have the big data roaming charges. Anyone with any tips would be very welcome.

I wonder will I have a few questions at immigration over my many visas especially the one from Eritrea, seeing as it is on the US list of unfriendly countries.  could make for some interesting conversations. I not had the best of luck with immigration questions in the past, A list of the items below.

1. South Korea => When I arrived in South Korea for the world cup in 2002, there was a big worry over hooligan’s from England. I have an Irish passport, but was born in London.  I was asked how long I was staying, and I said not sure, which was true, as it depended on how well Ireland would do. Not the best answer to give. This followed a series of other questions about why I was there, why I had Irish and not English passport, why did I not know when I was leaving, why did I not know how I was leaving. After a while of giving answers to all of the above I finally got to enter.

2. Russia => On my last day in Russia, I had checked in at the airport, got my seat on the flight and luggage all checked in to Dublin, was all set, or so I thought. As I walked though the immigration desk, handed in my passport and I notice the security person is looking a lot at my visa. Then she picks up the phone, and start talking away in Russian, she hangs up looks at me and back at passport, then picks up phone and more talking in Russian. I was thinking this is not a good sign. She hangs up the phone and asks me to stand aside, someone will come to talk to me. That is never a good sign. Have her explain to me, that while my visa had the correct dates, and my passport is in order, there is no mention of am I male or Female  am on the visa.  Dublin embassy had forgot to type m on the visa.  I had to wait for 30 minutes while they decided what to do with me. In the mean time, had someone from the airline come over to me, to explain the whole process of what would happen, and her advice to me was to pary they let me go, or it could be over a week before I got to leave, due to visa process and delays.  After 30 minutes or so, which felt like hours, I was called forward and let to go, they decided as Dublin has made the mistake and not me, they were making an exception and letting me leave. I thanked her, and quickly left

Eritrea => In Eritrea, when you arrive you fill in a form to declare all your money you take in, and when you leave you have to have this form showing any money you exchanged in the country. No problem I thought have it here , and it was all correct. I filled in the document, signed it and that was it. Until I got to the last step of security. Here you count out your money and it has to match your total on the form. I had made a silly mistake of subtracting my totals. mixed up my starting balance with my final balance. Not good, it is a serious offence if you leave money in the country not accounted for.   I was trying to explain that the money there did match if they let me subtract it correctly, but they were not buying that. One supervisor came over and then another. A lot of talking, giving out and questions. I kept trying to point them at the form, but that was not best move. In the end the head of security came along and he looked at the form, and noticed that I had made an innocent mistake. He told me , never make a mistake like that again, and let me go.

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