How to tell when you are on holiday with your in-laws....

1) You expend vast amounts of energy restraining yourself from throwing the small items you would typically launch at Xss when no one is looking. This is usually thin plastic cups, sweets, pens, etc

2) Your accommodation has its own private infinity pool. This was a free upgrade and worth every penny. A villa with free room service, pool, swinging sofa, kitchen and unlimited golf buggy rides anywhere. Oh and free afternoon Tea at the cafe everyday.

3) You no longer feel like people will ask you politely to leave the nice hotel you stay in as you don't look the part (are wrinkles not in fashion?) Just let them try with Glastonbury around!

4) You don't have to carry your backpack an inch. It magically moves itself. Or more likely bellhops carry it to the room before i get there.

5) All rooms have TV's with English movies on!

6) You make a list of British TV shows you want to watch after discussing Christmas and new TV shows that are out. Is it wrong to want to watch Upstairs Downstairs?

Increasingly this situation is making us miss home and romanticise the cold weather and dark nights. But then i remember certain times when i am standing on a dark council estate, untying my bike in the rain wondering how i am going to get to my next destination and not be soaking wet with frost enthused rain water skipped up my back?

However, our next stop is the Thai Zoo, where we get to pretend to be zoo keepers and do nothing more productive than pay to feed and clean up after wild animals we are not allowed to touch. For some reason we thought this would be a laugh. I guess not everyone gets to meet the Thai zoo keeper version of themselves.

Thailand- the land of the Hats and Kohs.

Thailand is such a welcome relief after freezing our asses off in Japan and America. We both have hearty coughs but now we also have tans again as well.

A typical day involves getting up for breakfast before ten, going to our room to 'sun-lotion up', laying on the beach or near a pool for as many hours as possible, reading and taking a few dips in any nearby water (today even a puddle would do its so hot), a possible late lunch at a beach side bar, in the afternoon i like to fit in a sleep along with repetition of morning activities. Then we take some photos of the sunsetting, go home shower and dress, to eat dinner and then sleep. All in all the pace of life has changed a lot from Japan where we woke up each morning in a hurry to try and fit in all the sight seeing and cultural experiences we could, often missing lunch in the process. However, i cant understand how i have had a half started letter to True next to my bed for almost a week now, and cannot find the time to finish it. hahah. Its amazing how you adapt so quickly to each new place and speed of life.

We have also been joined by Xss's parents, which is a welcome change as we now have some other source of conversation!

sorry, issues with uploading photos again, talk amongst yourselves as i try to rectify this problem right now........

USA Evaluation 231.8

USA

Likes: The food!! Dairy Queen ice cream, The Russells, having the freedom of a car, the national parks, being familiar with everything, cleanliness (no risk of food poisoning here), My old bedroom, the snow, half pound cookies, driving, 24hour all you can eat passes in Las Vegas, looking for celebs houses in Hollywood hills,

Dislikes: the responsibility of a car (did it have a good time?), Dennys restaurants, being cold all the time in California, going to the closed Jelly Belly Jelly Bean factory, the sat nav taking 5 minutes to boot up at inopportune times, gaining a belly,

Sunrises passed: 21

Places visited: Miami, Key West, St. Cloud, LA, San Francisco, Yosemite, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Joshua Tree.

Number of times i wanted to come home: 0. (Xss 2 - both at Christmas missing his family)

Favourite hostel: Best western in Key West. The ultimate in Luxury

Snow Angels made: 2

Number of minutes it took me to convince Xss to make a snow angel: 17 cold ones

Number of times my nose was a red as Rudolph due to the weather: 22

Number of times we played in the snow: 0 opps.

Favourite memory: Going to the Cinema with everyone on Christmas day, good family fun. Thanks for coming Tim (it took some convincing).

Worst day: All the days were so good, so driving to San Fransisco from LA was the worst as we drove the most.

Favourite new food or drink: Prime Rib (no bones involved here)

Best/worst smell: My old shoes, mould combined with old sweat and rainwater, the smell could fill up a room in 30 seconds!

Best/worst noise: The silence in the national parks, not a sound. Beautiful

Best Norwich City Victory: Beating QPR to get into 3rd spot in the championship.

Weirdest country fact: It is near impossible to buy matching underwear in America! Do they not like to match??? What would the ambulance men think..........

New thing learnt: There are rural communities all over America, even in California. You can live 3 hours from LA and live in the middle of nowhere. This made me realise I love small towns, and being isolated. Perhaps because i feel that i can do less; i like to be so involved in where i live that i still have so much i want to do and not enough time. If i lived somewhere without these options perhaps i would be less stressed and busy cramming stuff in. In London there are still numerous night courses i want to take (Dress making, photography, dance, creative writing), along with all the people i want to be better friends with (Mel, Alison, Leo, Danica, Junior etc), and kids i want to help. Not to mention wanting to start up several social enterprise projects, like a old clothes swap bag, gospel choir, and graffiti project. On top of maintaining my marriage, existing friendships, work, youth groups, kickboxing and church. I feel sometimes that i am letting myself down by not doing all these new things, but life keeps getting in the way, and the bathroom isn't self cleaning. Its nice to be taking this time off, but how can i limit these things in the future, or should i really be limiting them at all?

Country Score: 231.8

Japan- The land of the Queues

My new sumo friend. I think he is worried about his upcoming fight. That or he is cross that i am not joining the queue he is trying to create here.

Japan is mental.

It is so different to normal life it is hard to know what to make of it. Everything is so odd it feels like you are living in a theme park. First of all since we cannot speak Japanese and cannot read Japanese we cannot understand most of what is going on around us. The Japanese seem to like queueing for everything and it is not uncommon to come across a queue on the pavement, waiting patiently for something, but we know not what. There are so many ques it seems logical to go and stand in it also, as Forest Gump said, `it probably cant hurt no-one`. There are so many things we don't understand, like why do almost all toilets have heated seats, and little buttons that say, `flushing sound` and `strong deodoriser` but then there is no soap at the sinks?

The Japanese also all seem to have an individual sense of style and identity and people look unique and cool. Wearing anything seems to be the rule, and no-one stands out or actually, everyone stands out. They don't even seem to have to match with their friendship group, you will frequently see a girl in a Kimono, looking all traditional and ever so pretty, walking along with her normally dressed friend or boyfriend.

We have tried to get on with all the traditional Japanese things, drinking green tea, singing Karaoke, spending a day at the sumo wrestling, renting empty rooms with straw matting floors and a knee high table (took us a while to work out that the bed rolls were hidden in a cupboard for us to get out later). We have also tried out the public baths, which has been tricky since i don't like public nudity (well, my own nudity in public places (its a survival technique)) and try as i desperately may, no baths let you wear anything.　However the latest hotel we are at has its own baths in the basement and its not very busy, so rushing in, trying to relax and rushing out again, allowed me this experience completely alone.

My only two complaints with Japan are- why are the Japanese so damn respectful and quiet all the time, but then try and run you over with their bike on the pavement. Apparently it is not rude or shameful to your family to maim a stranger or cause serious bodily injury if you are in transit on your bike.

The second complaint is purely my own, but its tough (sob) to be a western girl in Japan. All the Japanese girls are not only pretty, but slim, and in a way that we cant get, even through a chopsticks water diet ( all the water you want all day so long as you use chopsticks to drink it). So i feel like a clumsy elephant all the time, and with my persistent (endearing) addiction to tripping over imaginary items on the pavement all the time, i cant help but stand out in all the wrong ways. However it is refreshing to be somewhere for once, where they don't think `west is best` and they wouldn't sell their kidneys to be you, in fact they would probably sell them not to.

(Prime example of this, i just went downstairs to check my washing in the machine, opened the top to see what was going on, in a cool way, as someone was watching. This stopped the machine and probably caused her frustration as she was waiting for said machine. Luckily after a few, painfully long minutes where i whistled and acted unbothered, it started working again. Then for the next cool move i opened the tumble dryer located conveniently, at head height, above the washer, hitting my eyebrow hard with the door in an effort to force the magnetic clasp. How do you recover from this? say `ow` and act like nothing happened.

A nice temple where i overheard some westerns talking about how relaxing it was to be somewhere where everyone was so benevolent and intent on spreading peace and love, above personal gain. I then found the below prayer.

Things my mother never told me-

1) California is not always warm. Who`d have known that California is not always sunny and warm. As we drove into beautiful Yosemite park, past all the signs that said, ` chains on tires needed` we knew all was not well. Despite the chains we did a little tour of the beautiful Yosemite, and took a few pictures. Due to the annual winter snow however most of the roads in the park were closed. So its a good job we have only packed for warm countries and only have thin waterproof coats with us. we felt like such fools. On the way to Las Vegas we had to phone ahead to check in the road was open, which it was, but got caught in a snow storm just after we had done the trickiest pass!


2) Snow burns. Don't touch the snow in Minnesota with your bare hands it hurts. Here is me trying to recover, although putting two burning hands together also has limited effect.


3) America is the country of opportunity. I LOVE America. Ever since i was an exchange student there and met the Russell's, i have adored it. In fact i am often quite nervous before i go back, as i`ve built it up so much to be this paradise of a place (people included) that i am worried one day it will fall from the pedestal position i have placed it upon. Everyone knows that Americas economy has not been doing so well, but it is tough to see the effect that this has on real honest American families. In my family there are 3 sons (30, 32, 34) of these, only the youngest now has a job (part time at the moment), the other two do not, both have house payments and families to support (neither wife is working either). These are perfectly employable hard working young men and women. This would not happen in the UK.

The Russell's and us at Christmas! They made us do all the washing up and vacuuming but it was worth it. Joking. They wouldn't let us do anything and even brought us presents!

4) Vegas is Crazy. Vegas is not crazy, its not too over the top, there aren't too many show girls or crudity, but there are a lot of ways to gamble. It is nice to see all the hotels and free things, but that is it, the free stuff is limited so as not to detract from the gambling, everything is limited so as not to detract from the gambling. Since we don't gamble, there was only so much to do. For Xss that meant eat, and we managed to get great value out of our all you can eat 24 hour passes (ended up being 45 dollars for breakfast, lunch and two buffet dinners!)

Thanks for a great Christmas Russell type folk. Until next time......