Getting to Nashville

In TN the county the car is registered in is shown on the license plate. My car was from Davidson County.
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Yesterday after almost 30 hours traveling, my flight finally arrived in Nashville. Getting here was certainly a lot more difficult and time consuming that it was 6 years ago (before 9/11). To get on the plane in Melbourne I had to line up 6 times as follows:

Check-in Customs Baggage Scanning Luggage searched for fluids Now for all flights to the USA you cannot carry more than 100mL of liquid onboard the plane. The only way airport security can check for liquid is by searching through every single pocket of your bag.

The flight to Nashville and getting my rental car.

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Body pat-down Everyone gets patted down by security to check that you aren't carrying any fluids on you.

Finally, line up to board the plane Despite all the waiting around, the lines did move quite fast and the plane still got away at the time scheduled.

The flight went by pretty fast, Qantas’ in-flight entertainment was the best I’ve seen so far. They had literally hundreds of movies and TV programs you could watch on the screen in front of you completely on-demand. Surprisingly one of the movies you could watch was “Snakes on a Plane” which is the last movie I would have ever thought and airline would use as an in-flight movie!

This car was a dream to drive! Cars in TN only have a license plate on the back.
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Once I arrived at LAX I had about 4 hours to wait for my next flight. Luckily it was with American Airlines (AA) which share the same terminal with QANTAS. Getting in though customs at LAX took about an hour. Every non-citizen entering the US now has their photo taken and both index fingers finger printed. Two hours probably would have been enough time to change flights though.

The AA flight to Nashville was almost 4 hours (30min was just getting to the runway at LAX), since AA have recently undergone a lot of cost cutting, they no longer serve meals on the plans, which I thought was a bit tight for a 4 hour flight.

Once at Nashville airport I went to Thrifty to pick up my rented car. They didn’t have the one I had booked but let me upgrade to a new Dodge Charger for very little. The Dodge is HUGE! I feel like I’m driving a tank on the road! It’s certainly different to my Hyundai Accent! It has cruise control which I have never used before and power everything! See the pictures section for the photo of it.

Getting into a car I had never driven before at night in a city and country I had never been to before was truly horrifying. The scariest part was remembering to drive the RIGHT side of the road. The freeway system in Tennessee is absolutely brilliant, certainly much better than anything Melbourne has to offer. The speed limit is 70MPH but you can do 75 (120km/h) without getting a ticket. I eventually found my way onto the Interstate and drove for about 2 hrs west to Jackson.