The Google Conference took Mark and his Colleague Gianpi to San Francisco for a week in May so the WAGS, (Me and Ale) tagged along for a holiday. We must have travelled to every corner of the city by foot, bus and Segway (everyone should try these). The best city in USA in our opinion, such friendly people and extremely liberal attitudes, especially in how they choose to dress, (or not) for their annual ‘Bay to Breakers’ fun run.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |
Pauline & Tom had a long holiday cruising and touring the USA at the start of this year. When they settled in Florida for a few months us kids, typical freeloaders, descended to destroy their peace and relaxation. With Auntie Chris, Hunky Paul, Robyne and James following we had a really fantastic family break and celebrated Mark’s 30th in style. The theme parks were hit hard but we also had time in some of the beautiful national parks and beach resorts.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
During our short stay in Chihuahua we unfortunately didn’t find any of its namesake dogs, just some nice buildings and restaurants making it a pleasant last stop in Central America. The following day we took a bus to the Mexico, USA border and had our most tricky crossing of the whole trip. We were so delayed that our bus left without us, but a taxi ride later we were in El Paso. Early the next morning we boarded our 30 hour Amtrak train ride to New Orleans. Great food, views and loads of leg room made for a fantastic trip.
3 days in New Orleans was a great way to end our honeymoon. We ate the most amazing southern food: Mark’s favourites were the Poe Boys, subs bulging with meat and gravy. I loved the jambalaya but I think my favourite had to be the Beignets, square doughnuts covered in icing sugar, ridiculously messy but very moreish . In the evenings we visited loads of live music clubs and heard everything from blue grass, to jazz and traditional blues. In the daytime, once we could drag ourselves away from our gorgeous hotel room, we explored the French and Garden quarters admiring the beautiful buildings on both street car and foot.
Our last day of the trip was spent driving our hire car to Houston in the worst thunder storm I’ve ever seen, not much fun when you can’t even see the road markings on the very busy freeway. Arriving safely but with a hell of a lot more grey hair then before we settled into our last Denny’s meal of burger, fries and chocolate milkshake.
The flight home in 3 stages was long and boring but it was all forgotten as soon as we saw our welcome party; waiting with balloons, flowers and smiling faces. Despite all of the amazing things we have seen and experienced, there really is no place like home.
Our 13 months of honeymoon has been the trip of a lifetime and a great test for the marriage! We are blown away with how much we’ve managed to squeeze into the time, 21 countries, 152 different beds, 25 flights, and more hours on trains and buses than we care to remember.
Thank-you so much for everybody (blogchops especially) who has posted comments and made us feel we’re not so far from home. As the next chapter of our life begins keep checking the blog in case we feel the architecture of Nuneaton and our visits to Tesco warrant a post.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
At the end of three amazing months in South America we had a brief rest from habla Español with a short spell in Orlando en-route to Mexico. The change-over was quite peculiar because many of the staff we spoke to were Latinos speaking English and often we’d start slipping Spanish words into our conversations.
After just two days of air-con, swimming pools, flushing toilet paper and all-you-can-eat buffets we were almost ready to call off the rest of our backpacking trip and relocate to International Drive. Since we were still very much on a backpacker’s budget we rode the bus around town, made sure every trip to the all-you-can-eats was on an empty stomach and abstained from the many theme parks. We did treat ourselves to a great night of blues at B.B. King’s before flying out to Cancun, slightly worried how we’d re-adapt to a life of lumpy pillows and baño compartido.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |