We Made It!
We’re in LA baby!
When we finally touched down on hallowed American soil earlier tonight, we breathed a collective sigh of relief! Not only were we excited to finally get here (after 14 hours crammed into an airline seat with very little sleep) but our turbulent few days before the trip left us seriously in doubt about whether we’d ever get here at all!
Just 6 days before we were due to fly out, Toby began to break out in spots! He was getting sicker and spottier by the day and when he was diagnosed with chicken pox, our dreams of boarding that jet, a few days later, were rapidly diminishing. We read online that you weren’t permitted to fly with chicken pox and friends told us stories of children being ordered off planes when their spots were spotted. We wanted to get the all-clear from the doc but when she told us she’d have to call the Public Health Department I had visions of them putting out an APB on our poor little polka-dotted son. When finally we were cleared for take-off, I told the doctor I wanted to hug her and although we now had official clearance, we still felt like we were smuggling stolen goods out of the country. Poor Tobes was hooded up, his scabs (which we had been assured were no longer contagious) were touched up with a trusty concealer stick. He showed incredible self-control and bravery not to scratch himself silly. Each checkpoint we made it through-on both sides of the globe (and there were many) made us so grateful and family high-fives were in order once we cleared customs to emerge on US soil. Thanks God!
I also forgot to mention that the same day Toby was diagnosed, Maisy came down with high temperatures, sore throat, runny nose, bad cough….oh, and incessant vomiting, which went on right up until the day we left!
Well, with all that behind us we are now ready to enjoy ourselves. On the ride to Santa Monica from the airport the kids spotted 5 different McDonalds restaurants, making it the obvious choice for our first US dining experience. Two things struck as as being different to our own Aussie ‘Maccas”. Firstly, everything’s a whole size bigger. The US medium is the Australian large and the US large is big enough to quench the thirst of a family of five. Secondly, the images of all their burgers on the menu, seem to really highlight the pickles. The Big Mac, for example, had THREE big fat juicy pickles poking out the side of the burger in plain sight. I may be wrong, but I don’t think the pickles are the biggest drawcard for the burgers at McDonalds. When I get a Big Mac the first thing I do is open that bad boy up and remove that revolting pickle.
Our body clocks are a bit out of whack so we’re hoping for a good night’s sleep.