E3 2006 Special | Cubed3 E3 Diary: Issue 1

Everything was going smoothly, despite the bleary eyes and huge yawns right up until that bit about check-in. OK, so we've been around a bit (take that how you want...), but it's been a while since we've graced the States.

We were a little shocked at having to empty our hand luggage, hand over our digital camera (be careful with that...), travel iron (gotta look sharp right..) and DS, freshly loaded with Animal Crossing (AURORA!!! Don't get wiped!!! NOOOOOoooooo), for an extra dose of x-ray probing. 8.30 am. We wouldn't normally even be up this early on a weekend, and we were already feeling violated.

One brew later, knowing it may be the last decent cup of tea we have for a week, and the nerves were starting to settle from the whole penguin vs US security incident. At least we had three hours to check in with Aurora and make sure everything's alright, because of delays to our flight for Chicago.

Finally, an hour and a bit late, we took off from Manchester Airport. From that point on we knew we were on our way. Not least because I got the theme tune from The OC stuck in my head (California, California. Here we come!).

Eight hours in the air with American Airlines, isn't too bad. OK, so the scenery sucks, as it's mostly the Atlantic Ocean, with the odd glimpse of Greenland and some dramatic glaciers, but the seats are comfy enough and DS' are allowed provided you don't mess with the WiFi.

Next it's the four hour flight from Chicago to LA, and the frantic run to the departure gate that's the killer. When we get to the gate we're puffing, panting, and have had a little bit of fighting on the way. The stress is starting to build up.

And it only get's worse. With the DS battery threatening to die, we're forced to watch King Kong being played from a tape which must have been used a million times before. We say watch because the audio was shocking. Starting to get a bit grumpy.

Thankfully, surviving the horrifying distortion of Peter Jackson's mega-monkey-movie, the sight of the Nevada desert and what we're pretty sure is the Grand Canyon perks us up a bit. We're not just in America now. No, we're almost there.

Nineteen hours of travel (with only a couple of short naps) are taking their toll, but we manage to stumble our way off the plane, get our bags (surely they weren't this heavy earlier...) and find the LAX metro stop; the home straight.

It's weird to feel so knackered, knowing you've been awake for over 20 hours, and seen night-time since you last went to bed. But weird didn't prepare us for what happened next.

Arriving at our hotel in LA and we're greeted with: "hmm?" The reception desk guy barely says a single thing, looks like he's waiting for us to pay the bill (which we sorted over a month ago) before fumbling around with the card keys, generally being strange. Not the usual warm American welcome we so desperately need in our state.

Getting to our room, it soon becomes apparent there's no WiFi connection (as we were led to believe), and it's all a bit pokey. What have we done?

Anna Sky Houlton