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Published: October 7th 2009
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So Uncle Joe had said bring your swimming stuff, so made sure we had that and then a toothbrush and that was us ready! Confused, he asked us aren't you going to take a change of clothes etc, obviously forgetting, that we are well used to having no belongings and coping quite well without them.
We quickly stopped at Dunkin Doughnuts for Ice Coffee and half of Portugal was sitting in there!!
We chatted and listened to music whilst Uncle Joe puffed away on his Malborough Lights and we took in the scenery on the hour journey to Aunt Lindas. Strange how there are just these huge motorways in the middle of nowhere and then there are maybe two oR three houses stuck out there too.
Arriving at Linda's was weird, not just because I was meeting two of my cousins for the first time ever and I hadn't seen Auntie Linda since I was eight, but being in a real New Jersey Neighbourhood with all these massive houses(later finding out they cost less than our terraced house at home!) was a bit strange.
I met my cousin Nicky who is twenty one and the last time
I spoke to her was on the phone when she was a toddler, I met a couple of her friends who were chilling out with her as they were on summer break from college. The burger and fries they had for breakfast was a huge shock to me. Uncle Joe left for work, whilst panicking about where the hell my Aunt was!!
In the mean time my cousin Keith turned up with his fiance Jill and their dog Bella. Keith was a bit confused about how we were actually related so after a quick explanation and loads of cuddles we got chatting. Bella had to been treated to a rather severve haircut from Keith which was causing much concern throughout the family. He then let me know that he had bought a few crates of Sprite and English muffins as instructed by my aunt as she didn't know what what we would eat!!
Another thing that was really wierd was the physical resemblance that Keith has to my brother Tony, really rather uncanny and made me a bit homesick even his mannerisms reminded me of him and freaked Dan and I out the whole time we were there.
The afternoon got even more emotional when my aunt turned up and started crying because I look so much like my mum that it freaked her out!!Lots of tears , cigarettes and Millerlites later it was as if we had only been there the week before!Then of course Dan felt comfortable to ask to see the fridge, hilarious. We chilled out by the pool getting bitten by midges and mosquitos and trying all the different flavours of Snapple with various spirits. We played pool and darts in the garage until all three fridges had been raided for beer then we moved onto drinking games which involved ridiculous challenges, including riding Keith's miniature bicycle around the neighbourhood.
My Uncle Joe is pretty relaxed so I had got used to that and I have to say we were pretty laid back after our travels, so Lindas' place was like, boom! People everywhere, in and out all the time and my Aunt is so loud, I don't think I was prepared for her to be so American and so loud!!! It was hilarious and a real culture shock for us. The accents again were under scrutiny and I even caught a
phonecall from my Uncle to my Aunt asking whether she could understand what Dan was saying or not!!Perplexed she said she could understand him fine , but that Dan had said he couldn't always follow what Joe said, oh dear!!
It was great to hear even more stories from Aunt Linda about my Mum and my Dad and the old times in The Azores. We had to deal with having to explain not feeling hungry and popping the occational bit of food in our mouths despite not really wanting it, what can you do after someone has made a massive barbeque?!!
The evening ended with some early morning swimming in the pool(too cold for me) and feeling faint in the bubbles of the hot tub!
We had a great nights sleep and awoke to find that Keith had done his broken ankle no favours the night before and was lying spreadeagled on his bed downstairs. The dogs were going crazy as usual for attention and I ended up with them sitting on me, despite the fact that as everyone knows Dan loves dogs and I'm not interested at all, he was not amused!!
We had a
great afternoon sitting in the sun by the pool chatting and then Keith made some amazing spicy ribs on the barbeque served with Jersey tomatoes, really yummy. In the late afternoon we all went bowling and had a few beers , I was useless as ever, but everyone else did really well.
A visit to Dunkin Doughnuts was in order and who would have thought that ordering a doughnut could be so complicated?Everything I thought sounded nice as a doughnut they had made as a bagel so I was out of luck ,after five minutes of ordering I gave up!Dan did much better, but I'm not sure he was ready for the cost, it was so cheap that he asked the cashier to check the prices of the 6 box and the three drinks, everyone was laughing at us, oh well!!!
Saying goodbye to my Aunt after such a short visit was really odd, especially not knowing how long it would be before we would all meet again, we had a great time and felt at home straight away. Again it all made me miss everyone at home even more than at any other time during the trip.
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