60 Litres and a Ukelele

Highlights:
- Bus-taxi ride in to town. Quite nerve-wracking as you jump on, say where you want to go and they fit you in en route, if they understood what you asked...!
- Foot massage lesson with Dai. A great few hours supposedly learning about reflexology but actually just how to give a relaxing foot massage.
- Orr and I headed off to Old Chiang Mai. We took a pony trap ride around the village to the temples, houses and ruins.

- next day was the Oil back massage lesson. Seriously hard work, probably won't be doing many of those!
- Wandered around town with a bit of a mission to see the sights, coffee, lunch in busy locals restaurant.
- Foot massage from a lady-prisoner in the rehabilitation centre.
- Orr and I spent the afternoon at the Princesses House.
- For Dinner, Orr and I went for an Indian with Rocha. We followed this with ice cream at Rocha's favourite place. Thai flavours, star fruit, roselle etc I stuck to pineapple (oh and a bit of Rocha's half a loaf of crusty bread, end-up, with a cup or so of butter poured in and baked, served with two scoops of ice-cream, cream and toasted almond - very popular, obviously, literally death on a plate.)

Top Three Monks:
3 - chewing gum like a gangsta, at 4pm, questionable as they are not allowed to eat after 11am, late lunch or badass?
2 - on a moped, listening to iPod, incongruous.
1 - four monks sitting in a glamorous urban coffee house with cappuccinos, frappaccinos (but not chinos, coz they only wear a yellow cloth!)

Yay, this computer is cleverer that I thought. Well, cleverer than me!

Highlights:
- Birthday Dinner for...Hannah, Alyss, Gloria, Nathan and MEEEEEEE!!!! A great evening out with The Medow/Mokolas Families. Off to a Greek restaurant for a few hours family bonding. Hannah, Nikolai, Alyss, Nathan, Marylin and I sat and chatted about College, Sport and stuff. Gloria, David, Jane, Sandy, Kevin were grown-up at the other. exciting Greek dishes set on fire, a belly dancer and mucho fun!
- Chicago Car Tour. David and Nikolai took me out for the day, driving around the city. We passed the cultural highlights - Soldier Field, home to the Bears and the McCormick Conference Centre;0), The places of Uncle David's childhood, different suburbs, The Obama's residence, Trump Towers, Corn-on-the-cob apartments, the revolutionary skyscrapers (first built in Chicago)...and many moooooorrrrrreeeee!
- Hannah's birthday. David, Nikolai and I drove to Hannah's Uni to take her out for birthday lunch. We checked out her uni residence; a shared kitchen/living-room with two shared bedrooms. A spectacular Asian meal with sushi, thai curry and asian salads at a packed restaurant. David gained a child as we left and a lady spotted Hannah's birthday gift and decided it was her birthday too;0) A tour around the St Xavier Shop for some mementos - mainly fleecy 'Cougar' trackies for Bea.
- Rinaldo. Jane and David took me to see the Handel opera. A great night out. We were welcomed to the Opera House by a spooky-looking, caped man - Gothic atmosphere? Check! We then had supper in the restaurant, served by The Perkiest Waitress ev-ah (that is saying something in the US of A) The production itself was brilliantly staged, with a very modern set. the singing was fab but...all the men - bar one - were counter-tenors; pretty confusing during the love songs!
- Gloria took us out for dinner at Red Robin. Bottomless drinks and fries - Danger! The most impressive onion ring presentation I have ever seen.
- We went to see David's cousins in Evanston. The town has the feeling of Oxford about it but with a better road system We met up with the Lobins: and Ruth, Peter and Gail, Izzy and Lucy. A meal from Pita (not Peter), a walk around Evanston and a Junior High Basketball game later, we bid fond farewells and plans for a 2013 return for Izzy's Barmitzvah!
- Last Day. Jane, David and Nikolai complied to my 'final request' and we headed to The Art Institute as my parting outing. A lovely building, filled with all the pictures you see in books and some really interesting exhibitions. Though I was not a fan of The Miniatures (a rich woman's hobby) they were amazing. The Chicago Stock Exchange and, just outside, The Bean.

Lowlights:
-Not even a lowlight but, the end of my trip, a Chicago-deep-dish-pizza as my last supper and off HOME!

No, the whole section on Chicago...lost I can't bring myself to do it again, so...

Highlights:
- Dinner with The Mokolas/Medow family at Greek Restaurant.
- Chicago Driving Tour
- Hannah's birthday. Visit to St Xavier University and Asian lunch
- Gloria's treat - Red Rooster and the onion rings!
- Visiting the Lobins in Evanston - Ruth, Peter and Gail, Izzy and Lucy - Pita, Evanston and Junior High Basketball match. Barmitzvah 2013!
- The Art Institute and The Bean.

Home!

Highlights:

- Nikolai and Hannah took me out to The Field Museum (via a drive-thru Starbucks!)
- great exhibitions: Ghengis Khan (Chinngis) and Mummies, including a 3-D movie. - watching The (American) Office

- Shedd Aquarium with Jane, Hannah and Nikolai. A great day out with a spectacular exhibition of jellyfish as well as an Aquatic Show with dolphins and beluga whales, otters, mega fish of the Caribbean sea, rising tides...and a 4, yes 4, D movie of Happy Feet, splashes, kicks and all!
- Fish Fry at church. Every Friday in Lent they have a social event where you buy your fish dinner. Great idea with a nice dinner.
- nice after Fry chat with everyone in the lounge
- The Office!

Highlights:

- David had some time free in the afternoon and took us out to Chilis for lunch. A mega salad meant I was sorted for luck AND dinner!
- Hannah then took me to 'her favourite place', The Promenade, open air shopping mall. Loads of lovely colourful clothes, fluorescent is clearly 'this season', I have missed so much!
- when Jane got home we headed out to the Mecca that is Target. A couple of hours later we came out laden with things we never knew we needed
- we went to the local pizza place for their speciality pizzas, adventures on dough!

- Gloria took us out for lunch with her niece, Debra. We had a wonderful time and ended up leaving four hours later, after our waiter had gone home, the others were giving us eeeevils and the tables were set for dinner. Good times!
- on the way home we passed through Barnes and Noble where I bought What Colour (Color, urgh) Is Your Parachute? And Career Test books? Here's hoping...
- Nik, Hannah, David and I watched Hugo. A good, atmospheric film. As David said, all about movies, that's why it got the Oscar - cynical but probably true, there were some pretty poor performances in it (Ali G).

Highlights:

-a morning at Lagoon Four, basking in the sunshine
- home to pack and head to Waikiki
- our hotel, The Modern Honululu, is lovely, modern and in...Honululu? - Almeena and I took the car back to Alamo. Painless and we decided to be adventurous and get the public bus back. Neither of us had change, after asking pretty much everyone on the bus, Almeena found a man with change for 20 dollars, in ones
- as we're in the taaaaaaaan, we had to go out, so a thai meal and off to the Hotel Bar and the Hotel club, The Modern Experience. Probably good when everyone arrived but a bit of a souless cavern until then, so by 1230, I was done and in bed - happy!

Lowlight:
-the garage door wouldn't shut when we left the apartment. Can you believe it? Deposit fear...

So, to the last leg of my RTW, Plainfield Illinois, home of Aunty Jane, Uncle David and cousins Nikolai and Hannah.

Highlights:
- Arriving at O'Hare to be met by Hannah and Nikolai by the baggage carousel - a cheeky Starbucks for the road, mmmm
- Jane was at work and tutors in the evening but she came home for dinner and a chat in-between.
- an adventurous dinner, Phillipino food. Quite like Chinese but more subtle (cross reference with lowlights) and Mochi - the next big thing I reckon, rice dough covered ice-cream balls, yum.
- The Double, don't watch the trailer! Good film.

Lowlights:
- bile beans. We ordered a green lentil dish which looked very appealing. Unfortunately ir was among the worst things I've ever eaten, soooooo bitter! Hannah and I decided that the beef bile we had spotted in the shop freezer was a main ingredient of this colourful dish!

Highlights:
- lie in until 0930! So happy to sleep while Grace went to chill by the pool.
- Room Service breakfast, egg-white scrambled and breakfast burritos, how USA do you want to be?
- Parasailing. Fun, easy, a surprisingly quiet and calm experience.
- chillaxing by the pools, getting champagne and free coconut ice-cream brought to your lounger.
- 'trek' to the 'no sex' masseuse (good to know). Great massage which left us all very relaxed ready for...
- Cheesecake Factory. (Read a hilarious tripadvisor review just before we came here. In summary: our holidays are bland, our lives are bland, we are bland! Haha) Reality: lovely cocktails and tasty food - though we ordered appetisers only and still didn't finish them!
- Strutted over to Zanzabar. In on the guest list, no queue and no fee - how I love the Internet. It was a glitzy (the only word I can think of to describe it) with USA music and USA dancing ie grinding about, euwwww. We had a boogie and did a lot of crowd-watching. Home by three, Al and Al stayed out!!!

Lowlights:
- some guy pretending he was a bouncer at the club trying to nick stuff from my bag - shame.