First day

What a crazy first day! Like a rollercoaster, from joy to fear and finally relief... But step by step:

1) baggage drop-off required a good portion of patience, since there was a metall-band with their instruments in front of me... However, I had an eventless flight on the new Boeing 747-8, great piece of engineering!

2) immigration and customs... My worst dream seemed to become true, just with an happy ending. The line at immigration was unusually short and I went through within 20 minutes. But: The officer didn't stamp my passport. "It's okay" he said, when I asked. For a few seconds I felt relief due the fast processing but moments later I couldn't believe and asked a random officer at the baggage claim, who then dropped the worst words one could imagine: "secondary inspection".
In other words: they don't trust you. Third summer in a row, this time even three months?! Maybe they send you back home, maybe they don't allow you a 90-days stay. Trip is ruined anyway.
I couldn't realize all that, somewhere between nervous breakdown and unconsciousness. Had to give away my passport and "take a seat". Sitting there for way too much time I had already accepted that this trip was gonna come to an early end. Eventually they called for "Erb" and I had to tell my story again. Finished school, university in oktober etc. etc. They even wanted a second ID with photograph, luckily I had my national ID with me.
Again I was told to sit down and wait. Some more minutes, pulse skyrocketing.
Long story short: After another talk I got the damned stamp and even the full 90 days.
By the way: I bet they went through all data they got about me, including facebook, mail-account and this blog (which is linked to the mail-account). Welcome to 21st century...
Got out the airport and into a wall of humidity. Quite different to California, the climate over here.

But now to the nice things!
3) Called Linda from the airport and she came pick me up with her massive car. Easy loading and off we went.
After I had assembled my bike at Linda's place there was a delicious dinner with her family - what more does it take to make a traveller happy?
A bed, of course! Found a pretty cheap one at Holiday In Dulles, likely to be the most "luxurious" accommodation on this trip.

Tomorrow America celebrates its independence from the British crown, declared July 4th 1776, followed by 8 years of war and since then celebrated with parades, fireworks and much more.
I'm gonna watch the huge fireworks at National Mall. Yes, that's where Martin Luther King Jr. held his famous speech, or was it Forrest Gump?