The family, the wedding & more chocolate??

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We've come to our final destination. The USofA for Carly & Paul's wedding.

Chi Town
Arriving in Chicago, it was nice to be met by someone at the airport, and someone who could talk to us and we could understand (my dad). So good to see the family again, and also some of Phuong's family too. My little nephew (who's almost one) has learnt to do kisses : D - well he leans in, and you get a bit of slobber, but it's the most adorable thing in the world. Chicago feels like my 2nd (or 3rd maybe) home but it was Tim's first trip so we didn't hang home long before heading out to see some sights.

I was a little skeptical about coming back to the US, one of the world's "super-powers" is not high on my favourite travel destinations. That said, I've had a blast and my opinion has definately improved. I spose Chicago and St Luis is considered mid-west? This is where real US hospitality comes in and probably what I was hoping for with my first few visits.

We checked out a Cubs game on the Thursday night. You don't even have to leave your seat to get food and beer! You pass your ID and money down the line and they pass back your food/beer/change/ID. Wouldn't happen in Australia, you'd lose the lot.

Cubs were down by 3 at the bottom of the 8th- they loaded the bases and then Ramirez stepped up to hit a home-run. I learned this is called a "Grand-Slam" and everyone lost their minds. Cubs ended up winning by 2.




The Wedding
The day had arrived. No one slept the night before as anyone who knows the Nguyen family know, everything is best organised last minute in the early hours of the morning.

Carly was trying to not be stressed, and she was pretty calm, but a bit nervous about how it was all going to go. But she need not have been. The wedding was beautiful. The bride looked amazing. The Cathedral they chose rivals anything I saw in Europe - including the isle which took about 10 mins to walk down. Sarah (the sister) and I started crying when Carly walked through. There was lots of fun getting ready, driving around with 10 of us in the back of a limo - the Nguyen family are hilarious - trying to not spill subway mayo on our dresses, or the syrup which was sold as "champagne".

Finally at the reception we could take our shoes off! and start relaxing. it was lovely they had our partners sitting at the bridal table too - so just a small table of 20 or so. (more food stories) The food was amazing (good chinese food, is really really good), the speeches were pretty funny - and Carly's dad (whom i've never heard talk so much) had us all in tears. And then the music began. So we danced into the night, or at least till they kicked us out.

St Louis was a blast. Danyane's sister-in-law has 8 siblings, so they were awesome to party with. The wedding was great!!! They had a 10+ course chinese dinner and an open bar, I was in heaven.

We went out to a pub after the wedding, to a place where all the college kids had gone after the football game. A 12 year old was trying to chat Danyane up, so Phoung's youngest brother, Peter, told me he had my back if I wanted to fight the guy hahahaha. We then went back to the hotel bar and I taught the guys the Albatross game, we got pretty rowdy.

On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrell and (in my hungover state) I ordered the country fried steak! Think a big piece of steak, KFC style hahaha it was the best.

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