I'd never been to the United States before - in fact I'd never really been anywhere before. I'd been to Scotland (for an hour) and my one trip abroad was a week in Anglesey, the large island off the northwest coast of Wales. But I always try to follow the maxim 'If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well', so off I went to Manchester to catch my first plane and start me off on my three month Cosmonaut tour of North America.

Being a trip of firsts for me, I of course had never been on a plane either - at least not one that also happened to be airborne... Nik (f@ce) tried to panic me about planes, but I shrugged that off. And control freak or no control freak, I actually enjoyed the flight - straight up, on a bit, and straight down. Simple.

It was just a quick hour down to Heathrow, the busiest airport in the world (by number of passengers travelling per year), where I followed a long, long trail of walkways and a bus (big airport) to get to my 747.

The window seat I managed to wangle on the top deck gave me a great view out onto not a hell of a lot... once you get past Ireland, there isn't much until Newfoundland. Talking of which, that was nearly my final destination. Half an hour into my first international flight (eight hours plus) the captain put out a distress call for any doctors on board... We later found out that someone was very sick and if a doctor hadn't been able to do wonders, we'd have put down in Newfoundland for a long unplanned delay. Of course the delay came anyway in Detroit, where we had to wait for the paramedics to do their thing before we were allowed to leave the plane.

But leave the plane I did. Finally. Only to be held up by obnoxious customs officials inside Detroit airport...

Understand this: the world's view of Americans is gained by watching the news. When the news is full of armed militias, doomsday cults and race riots; and Bill Clinton, Jerry Springer and OJ Simpson, it is perhaps inevitable that the world doesn't see America in such a great light. In short, we see the worst of America, a land that Leonard Cohen described as "the cradle of the best and the worst". Luckily I found my way onto Cosmo's Conundrum, a wonderful place that is populated by the best of America. With a few notable exceptions, who I won't comment on here - but five longterm troublemakers out of a cast of literally thousands is a pretty damn good percentage in my view.

Which brings me back to Detroit customs officials... a nice bunch of friendly people they are. Until they ask how long I intend to stay in the country and I answer three months...

Suddenly the smiles and the charm disappear to be rapidly replaced by a notebook and pen. 'So what sort of job do you have that means you can take three months off, huh?'

Airports have a large room off to the side somewhere where they can take potential illegal immigrants. Off I was guided to this stark, benched room, mostly quiet but for the intense cross-examination being given to a couple of other unfortunates in the veiled off booths at the end.

Anyway, somehow I satisfied the new official's questioning and found my way out to where Tracy (Juliet*) and her mother were ready to start my pleasant experiences of Detroit and the US of A.