Murica!

I just got back from a crazy, ambitious trip to America that I had been planning for a year with 2 of my closest girlfriends. I'm suffering a bit of post holidays blues to be honest. Holiday life involved no cancer hospital things and was really social - returning to the quiet of days at home post chemo with just my dog for company is hard. My parents are away in Ireland as well so that's a bit isolating as well. I'm really independent but I've come to rely on having them around and having them so far away feels rough. Chemo was a long day as well - from 10am to 6pm I was at the hospital because I'm really magnesium deficient, so basically reality has come crashing back as soon as I got home. I did get a lovely reunion with Ruby dog - she was so excited to see me and has been scared I will leave her again every day since I got back. She is extra cuddly and needy which I'm not complaining about. Except when she cuddles up close at night, I get up to go to the bathroom then when i return she thinks I'm an intruder and growls at me! But anyway enough about boring reality and more about the exciting trip. We started at our friend Kayla's family home in LA and saw all the standard LA touristy sites, Hollywood sign, Mann's chinese theatre etc. Then We went to Encinitas to stay for a few nights and went to San Diego Zoo and checked out the beaches around there. Staying with Kayla's family was amazing, they treated us like we were family and I miss them all already. It really felt like home and it was so special to get to see such an important part of my friend's life from before she met us. The baby gorillas and Orangutan put on a great show for us at the zoo, it was incredible getting to watch them play and I got addicted to Kayla's local diner - the Bagelry. I am an absolute bagel addict so starting the day with a toasted bagel drowned in cream cheese was like heaven for me. We went to Disneyland and I got a wheelchair for the second half of the day as the walking was a bit intense for me. It worked to our advantage as we got to cut the queue. Disneyland truly is magical. My favourite ride was Soaring, where you simulate flying over sites around the world and it recreates smells and sounds, it literally was like we were there at places I've been like Africa and Paris. I can't believe how well they captured the feel of places. My other favourite was Indiana Jones and Haunted Mansion was really fun and clever. It was a really lovely day that I'll never forget, and before we knew it it was time for Kayla to fly home and for us to move on to New York. There were tears and big hugs and I was really nervous about how I would go away from the security of a caring family. My worries were silly and although New York was tiring and I had to have a rest day, I managed to see everything that I wanted to see. We got the hop on hop off bus which reduced the amount of walking and saw all the standard sites, then went to a baseball game to see the two New York teams face off. The atmosphere was amazing even if I still don't understand what was going on! We went to the museum of natural history, which provided wheelchairs which helped with all the walking and spent the day there avoiding the rainy weather. 

Next stop was New Orleans, which was incredible. There was live music everywhere and a real energy to the place. We stayed in great accomodation in the french quarter and did a swamp tour and plantation tour.. I sat out the ghost tour as I was pretty wrecked but we also went on the steamboat dinner which was lovely. We checked out Bourbon street but it was pretty gross and chaotic - maybe 5 years ago I'd have loved it but it wasn't really our scene. We had some incredible meals and I'll miss the taste of the south for a long time to come. We hired a car and started our drive to Dallas. We drove around Dallas, Austin and Houston and stopped off in the little town of Waco for an afternoon where we checked out a weird Mammoth discovery site. We went horse riding in Dallas which was incredible but really physically demanding and swam at the freezing cold Barton Springs pool in Austin. We stayed with a friend that Sonja and I met on a scottish tour when we were 19 in Houston and her family and it was lovely to end the trip at a friend's home. She took us out for Tex Mex and we went on a little train through the park. We also headed out for a night ok karaoke, 2-step dancing with partners, line dancing and  a lot of laughs. It was fun playing with her little boys as well and when before we knew it it was time to fly home we were really sad to say goodbye.

Looking back at the trip I can't believe how much I achieved and that my health held out for the whole 3 and a half weeks. I could only get limited insurance for the trip that didn't cover my existing condition so I was a bit on edge the whole trip worrying that something would go wrong. Next time i'm sticking to holiday locations that are on a reciprocal health agreement with Australia, which are basically all of the commonwealth countries and some others in Europe so that if I got sick i could go to hospital without becoming bankrupt.