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Houston we have a problem!

We have a lift-off but it wasn’t smooth…
After a 1.5 hr delay out of Narita we were finally on our way to adventure. 11.5 hrs later we landed in Houston, to transfer to our flight to Bogota.
For reasons only known to Mr. Bush and his team of security advisors, anyone landing on USA territory, regardless of their final destination, must clear customs, go through security checks and then when leaving of course the departure process (e.g. more security checks). No exception for us, even though we were only in transit. A ‘lovely’ experience which lasted 1.5 hrs and involved queueing multiple times waiting to be photographed, fingerprinted and bag-searched while not wearing any footwear.
While waiting in the queue for the departure security check, it became pretty clear that it was going to be impossible to make the flight. And judging by the many complaints we heard arounds us, we were certainly not the only ones…
After a sprint to our gate the plane had indeed already taken off. We´d missed boarding it by only 13 minutes. GRRRrrrreat.

With only one flight a day that meant we were stuck in Houston, Texas. Thankfully the lady at the service counter was very helpful and booked us on next day´s flight and provided us with coupons for hotel, dinner and breakfast.
Staying on the positive side, we figured we would go and see a bit of Houston but as it turned out the hotel was somewhere in the outskirts of town. Sooooo we resigned to eating hamburgers for dinner and watching NYPD re-runs until we fell asleep. The room was just like in the movies, as was everybody we observed over dinner, so it was quite entertaining actually. Envision hearing country music, strong accents, and sizeable Americans eating hamburgers. Very stereo-typical, but true!

Lessons learnt:
1] If at all possible, do NOT fly somewhere with the USA as a transfer hub.
For all consequenses described above. And also because for some reason, everytime we depart USA grounds we get “randomly selected” by the front security guy computer for a thorough frisking session.
2] Always ask for a wake-up call. Especially when you’re severely jetlagged…

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