Home Sweet Home!

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Hello from Norwich, Norfolk, England!

Yes, that's right, we made it home in one piece. We've been so busy this week, that I suddenly realised I hadn't done a last blog - for the rest of Chicago, Orlando & also Boston, the last place we went to, so here it is........

Chicago was one of the wettest places we've visited. We spent much of our time window shopping on the Magnificent Mile, literally a mile of Prada, Gucci, Gap (?!) and various other shiny glass fronted shops that we won't be able to afford to shop in. Ever. When it wasn't raining, we went to Grant Park to see the famous Bean Sculpture. Famous in Chicago at least. It's a giant, chrome blob that reflects the skyline brilliantly.
Like most art, it's a bit pointless, but we had loads of fun taking pictures of ourselves in the reflection. As you do. So, went to the cinema, saw The Prestige, which isn't out here yet and generally hid from the 4 degree temperatures. Lake Michigan was lovely, more of a sea really, it's pretty huge. Navy Pier was fun, until Ju dragged me on a ferris wheel - I hate those things, they don't feel stable. (Neither did jumping out of a plane, but still).

Before we could move on to Olando, we had to get ourselves to Midway Airport and we decided to take the subway. At $1.25 each, it was a damn sight cheaper than a cab. Trouble was, we had to catch the train at 5.55am, on a day which turned out to be dark, drizzling and just a little bit scary. The only other people in the subway were a shouty man, a couple of homeless types, a female security woman, who looked like Hooks from Police Academy and a pile of sick, from the night before, I imagine. Lovely. We avoided any potential mugging/scary stuff and hauled ourselves to the airport, completely shattered but looking forward to some sunshine in Florida.

The sun was shining as picked up our hire car, a rather weird looking Dodge Caliber, and we headed down to I-Drive, our base for the first four nights in Orlando. Ju had done the business again and got us a mega deal on a hotel, $39.99 per night for the room, about £22ish. Bargain.
This round the world trip was now starting to feel more like our usual two-week trip to the USA, which was quite strange, given all the places we've been to in the last six months.

Orlando passed in a flash, we visited both Universal parks, screaming our heads off on various rides along the way, like The Mummy, Spiderman & Duelling Dragons. Even though it was November, we also went on all the water rides, getting totally soaked in the process!! Seems there's no 'winter setting' for the amount of splashing that happens! We saw our first Ipswich scummers, I mean fans, at Islands of Adventure too.
They were getting off a ride (Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges - a rather wet, spinny thing) and quick as a flash I gave them a rendition of On the Ball City and a cheeky grin. I'm such a hooligan. They had the usual blank, gormless expressions of your typical Ipswich fans, so I assumed they hadn't a clue that I was a Norwich fan and proceeded to board the ride.

Well, bugger me, seems they did click that I was ' the enemy' - they were waiting on the last bridge that straddles our ride, a place where there are coin-operated water cannons!!!Grinning their heads of and watching me squirm, our boat swished its way towards their loaded cannons. Luckily, they mistimed their blast of water, getting most of the other people on our boat wet and missing me & Ju, brilliant!

So, back to Orlando anyway. We went to all four Disney parks which were mostly a lot less busy than when we normally go in summer. Animal Kingdom wasn't as good as I recall, mainly because I've been on proper safari now, so their sanitised safari ride was pants in comparison! Still, there was a new ride, Expedition Everest for us to try out. Thankfully not a water ride, but a scary forwards AND backwards coaster that's mostly in the dark, while a screaming yeti chases after you. So good we went on three times, only stopping when poor ole Ju got so dizzy we had to go and get a drink and have a bit of a rest!

That night, we ate at one of our favourite places, Tony Romas. We had just sat down and were looking at the menus when a man on the next table to ours suddenly leaned round and proceeded to dump his dirty plates on our table. I wasn't having that, but I was too shocked to move, never mind clobber the guy. Luckily, Ju slammed the plates back towards him and gave him a few choice words. The bloke's response? That's your table, over there. Eh? True, we were just the two of us sitting on a four seater table, but still! The cheek of him. I couldn't believe someone would do that, much less when I realised he was English, probably on holiday like us. Idiot. I regained my compsure and gave him some much needed verbals, which ended up with his family telling HIM off! Hilarious. Good job they left soon after.

So, to our final destination, Boston, Massachusets. We've been here before, and we were due to stay in a shabby, out of the way hotel, which Ju had found at a pretty good rate. Boston, it seems, is one of the most expensive places to find hotel accommodation in the US. Now, we were meant to be going on to New York after Boston, but we had decided to skip NYC and head home after Boston.
It only meant getting home a day and a bit earlier than we'd planned, but it was going to save us mucho dollars, plus we wouldn't have to fly home in the early hours of the morning either. With that in mind, Ju revisited the hotel websites and got us a cracking deal to stay at the Sheraton Boston, a pretty wicked hotel which we'd stayed in before, right in the centre of town and on the subway line too.

The reception staff were good to us, giving us a room which was more of a suite. It had two tv's and six windows overlooking the Charles river & Fenway Park (home of the Boston Redsox), to give you some idea of the scale. The reception girl must have noticed Ju's date of birth too, as they sent up a tray soon after, loaded with wine, cheese, fruit & crackers and a Happy Birthday card, free of charge of course. We were very impressed. Even though neither of us like red wine! Ju went and got us two diet cokes instead, how Rock of us.

Our time in Boston went all too quickly, we walked Newbury Street (the Rodeo Drive of the East apparantley), visited Harvard Square and generally marvelled at the Autumn-ness of the place. We had lovely weather, all sunshine & blue skies, so we walked around with big smiles on our faces and generally reminisced about the trip. The flight home was awesome too - we got bumped up to business class!!!
The stupid check in woman had put us at the back of the plane, in tiny seats where the armrest didn't lift up, so we'd have been extra-squished all the way home. Luckily, we let it slip to the cabin crew that we were goin home after a round the world trip, and hey presto, we were sat with the posh people before take off. Result!

I hadn't told my parents we were skipping NYC as I wanted to surprise them, so when we got home, we went over to my little sister's new house ( five mins from my house, very cool) and hid in the lounge. It was worth it to see my mum's face, bless her, she nearly jumped out of her skin! The funniest thing? She said 'what are you doing here?' which was so funny!

So, we're back. And it's cold! We're back to our old lives, but definitley not quite our old selves. You can't do a trip like this without changing a tiny little bit of yourself. Not just by leaping out of a plane, but having seen so many different people, ways of life, cultures, food, everything, then I don't think you can not have new opinions on things.
Don't worry, I don't feel the urge to save the whale, or relocate to Zimbabwe or anything. Not today anyway. It just makes you appreciate how good we've got it in England, even if it doesn't always feel like it! I don't know where we'll go on our next holiday (if we can ever afford one!) but I can't see it being a week on a Greek island. Don't think that'd be quite exciting enough for the forseeable future.

Just to leave you with a few numbers:

We did................

*37 flights across 17 different airlines

*Visited 17 countries on 5 continents, 18 if you count 2 hours in Tahiti airport

*Travelled on 6 trains, 4 rental cars, 1 campervan and a canoe

* Stayed in hostels, hotels, tents, bush huts, treehouses, overnight trains & boats!

*Ingested 120 malaria tablets each

*Drove 2500 miles in New Zealand

*Learned new words in at least 10 languages

*Had three major hangovers (the kind that resulted in vomiting. Sorry).

*Had only one illness requiring medication (Ju's poor guts in Vietnam)

*Were scared senseless twice, once in Ngepi when we thought animals were going to eat us as we slept & once in San Fran when we stumbled through the Tenderloin area

*Were stared at 6 million times in SE Asia!

*Climbed the Sydney Harbour bridge

*Watched 2 stupid sports - AFL and Baseball

*Did plenty of adrenaline-y sports, like jet boating, quadbiking and my skydive!

*Had loads of pro-Fiji comments on my blog from Fiji lovers!

And so on. Favourite place? I liked everywhere, Saigon, Shanghai, Sydney, San Fran being my favourite cities, Sydney winning it for Ju. All of Africa was awesome, especially Namibia. Christchurch is pretty, Angkor Wat is spectacular & Ayers Rock truly unmissable, especially as we watched dawn break over it. Halong Bay was stunning in Vietnam too.
New Zealand has some unmissbale scenery, although it's towns aren't necessarily as memorable as it's countryside. Denver has the Rockies, we liked Yosemite, Vegas & San Antonio too. What I'm trying to say is - I'd do it all again. We both would, only with loads more money.
All good things come to an end, can't believe how many people have read this thing while we've been away! So, thanks for reading, it's been tremendous fun. Here's to the next 'once in a lifetime' trip....!

Love Kelly & Julian xx

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Comments

[Brian B.]

Welcome Home
Once again, many thanks for sharing your round-the world experiences with us. Great photos and blogs really made it feel as if I was with you. Just a pity Kelly that the Ipswich boys were not on target in Orlando. However, the Tractor boys shot down the canaries instead at Portman Road didn't they?........ Oh. Oh!!!!! Looking forward to seeing you both on my next trip. Beebee.