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After being awake for 26 hours yesterday, I was surprisingly alive. I did get a healthy eight hours' sleep anyway so no immediate worry. Any jet lag would come later. I headed down for breakfast, which was courteously included in the room price. The lobby looked quite nice with lots of space, green stuff and all kinds of food for eye. The food for tummy was not that bad either, although the selection was not quite a similar horn of plenty as seen in some places in Europe.
After the breakfast we were ready to terminate our brief visit in this hotel, and we fetched our belongings back down and checked out. Mike, Ashley and Ari, more colleagues, had room in their car for us, so we rode with them to the day's meeting. On the way we learned that giving the Neverlost GPS navigator a proper address but a wrong city (all that seemed like Dallas actually was not Dallas) could lead to very interesting directional guidance. Apparently there was a similarly named road both in Dallas and Plano. A suitable adjustment in the entry and a U-turn fixed the situation.
The meeting did not hold any huge surprises except for the utter lack of jet lag -- I was probably more awake than normally. And knowing me, that was really weird. Anyway, it's always been easier in this direction; I just wake up a bit earlier and similarly start to doze off earlier in the evening.
Towards late afternoon it was getting time to secure us to be aboard the next aerial transportation. The cab we had ordered arrived well in time. So did Teemu; I had some minor trouble -- and almost managed to create a big one, but luckily upon filling the trunk of the car I noticed that my big suitcase was missing. I had brilliantly left it behind in the meeting room, and the damn box had not made any sound to remind me of its existence! Easily fixed at this point, however, and soon we were off to the airport.
Dallas-Fort Worth introduced us to a new concept: a baggage check-in point outside, next to the driveway. A very convenient idea -- although not that useful in the more violent climate of Northern Europe. We dropped our belongings there and proceeded inside to check ourselves in. After the obligatory security numbers, we were in. The airport seemed bigger in his direction than coming in, many more gates to see than when heading towards the exit. Quite a bit of these minuscule airport shops too -- last chance to buy the obligatory souvenir key ring. I had acquired mine already in the morning from the even more minuscule ship in the hotel lobby though.
At the gate we came across another familiar face -- Andy, our Canadian colleague from the other side of the negotiation table, had been sitting there basically half the day, having been swapped from the more expensive direct flight from Toronto to one with a long pause in Dallas. Poor sod. :) The flight to Houston was again uneventful, to the degree that I cannot actually even remember whether I was asleep or reading or what. In the dark the city looked just like Dallas -- a gazillion tiny bright spots seemingly mapping out the entire face of the earth.
On the other hand, the missing suitcase made it a bit easier to walk across the terminal to get to the shuttle bus taking us to car rentals. This unbearable lightness of being came especially handy since, after finding the shuttle stop, we made an extra round in a vain search of an open airline company desk, so that Teemu could change his return flights for a later day, having accidentally booked his return right after the work was over. Well, that had to be done later; apparently they did not keep any personnel on duty at that time. It was not that late though -- maybe we just were in some backwoods after all? The Texan space cow somehow hinted otherwise but you never know. We retraced our steps to the shuttle stop and the shuttle transported us to the huge parking building of rental cars. The lady at the wheel took special care to inquire us whether we liked her station 'cuz she sure was not going to change it. We did not mind.
We de-escalated one floor to the car rental desks. It took inconceivably long for the lady to do all the paperwork -- or rather, computer work -- but finally we got the papers for the car. Somehow the folder felt too thin, and after a moment of looking, I noticed there were no keys. "The keys are in the car", was the reply. Now, that's ingenious -- why doesn't someone just walk in and steal a car?
We moved our possessions to and into the car. Once again, it was a gold-colored sedan. I am beginning to wonder if I look like a guy who absolutely wants one -- or is it just that this is the ultimate rental car stereotype? Like before, this had some neat gadgetry (compared to my French car anyway). The key ring had, besides the obvious remote locking and unlocking of doors, a remote horn (no doubt to help you find your car from the US-size car parks, comparable to European airports) and a remote trunk opener. The windows and seats were naturally electric and the transmission automatic. The funniest one was undoubtedly the foot pedal level adjustment! Upon leaving the parking lot it also became obvious why the keys can be kept in the car. We had to show the car papers to the guard in the booth at the exit before he raised the barrier and lowered the tire-hungry huge spikes under the driveway. As I tried to get used to resting my left foot instead of using the brake pedal as a clutch (with success but not immediately...), Teemu punched the address of the hotel into the GPS. Now, I don't want to sound like a commercial, but a navigational device is really invaluable in a foreign city. A paper map can be quite difficult to handle in the dark and almost impossible if you are driving alone. The GPS talks to you in plain computer English ("freeway - exit - in - one - point - five - miles"), warns about fork intersections and tells which way to stay and even quite often is relatively right; the latter meaning that despite its capabilities, it is not yet a replacement for common sense. Highly recommended, regardless. After some 30 minutes on the freeway, we found the hotel -- right next to the freeway, close to downtown Houston. The GPS showed its uglier side by announcing "right - turn <ding>" the very second we should have turned, so we had to resort to some extra sightseeing in the vicinity, and GPS quite soon stated to be calculating - a - new - route. On the bright side, the involuntary study of the surroundings was useful to get a grasp of the area close by, and in the process we also noticed being hungry, so the expedition was redirected into finding a suitable fast food joint. They were surprisingly scarce in this area (or we were just bat-eyed); however, we finally found one and parked outside. We went and tried the door but the seating part was already closed. We walked to the drive in order and tried to talk to the microphone, no results. Maybe a car was required to turn the system on. Walked to the window and tried to knock; the lady ignored us, and we noticed the sticker in the window stating that no orders are taken through the hatch (or something along those lines). Bottom line: if you don't have a car we won't sell you a hamburger. Brilliant! So we walked back to the car on the other side of the small building, drove to the ordering point, ordered, drove to the hatch and got our hamburgers. Then we drove back, parked, got out of the car and ate the burgers. Talk about a car country! Having satisfied the craving for animal fat, we drove to the hotel and checked in. Lights out.
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