Finally. My luggage was checked, including my bike, I survived the tough good-bye from my significant other without sobbing all that much and I managed not to put my passport in the checked luggage. Together with 160 other people, I sat in the United airlines flight 937 bound for Washington DC. Of course we were late as this flight has never left on time (thanks to "congestions in the airspace above Zurich..."). Eventually we made it to the runway and were about to take off - when suddenly the pilots noticed some lights in the cockpit, which, according to their judgment, should not be lit up. Oops. Back at the gate and after two hours in the plane waiting for the definite decision, we learnt that our flight was cancelled due to a leak in one of the engines... United we stood in line to get our new flights assigned. This opened up some interesting discussions with people, I would otherwise not have had. For example, I learnt that the French ski team members are selected in a rather peculiar way, as only a few villages in the French alps can qualify. Too bad if you are a good skier and life somewhere else. Eventually, I made it to the desk, where I had various options to choose from. I chose to go via New York with Swiss the next morning, which would prolong my stay on Swiss soil for another 8 hours and a half until we landed in JFK. Here I could test the easy going way of the Americans for the first time: I wanted to fly to another airport in Washington, as my original destination was quite inconvenient for David, my new next door neighbor, to pick me up. What I believed would be impossible actually was done after about an hour. It could have been even faster, but carrying two suitcases, a bike in a box, my carry on luggage and my bag was not a very efficient endeavor. Well, eventually I made it and arrived in Washington National Airport on 18 December, 2006, at 17:10. My adventure in the promised land would finally start. Without my bike, which missed the flight in New York. Again, that was not such a bad thing, as this led to a delivery at my front door on Capitol Hills, where my new home stands. Let's see, what experiences my time in DC will bring me, shall we?