Wednesday 30th October – Sunday 3rd November 2019

After a week or so checking out the sights of London but mostly recovering from the Moroccan flu, I was off to the U S of A to visit my bestie Katie and her family in Maryland. Katie I’ve known since, well, let’s just say over half my life! They moved to the US for one hell of an adventure, and for her husband Jules’ work.

I’d love to say the trip was off to a brilliant start but besides the pain in the arse checkin cos I’m a rampant over packer AND the 7 hour layover at JFK AND the three gate changes for my flight, there was some confusion (my fault) about my arrival date. Katie being the brilliant friend she is drove an hour and a half to pick me up from Baltimore, only to hear I wasn’t arriving until the next day. Major travel fail!!

Besides all that, seeing the smiling face of a friend you’ve known forever is one of the best feelings in the world! Once my head wrapped around being on the other side of the road, I could take in the lay of the land. Maryland to me looked a bit like Forks from Twilight, yes I’m way too old for those movies but whatevs. Woods bordering the highway, trucks in every lane and good ol’ American style diners along the road. Our stop off for real Mexican food, real because the chefs actually looked Mexican, was a welcome change from my diet of donuts and airport coffee, the only thing open between midnight and 7am at JFK. There was gin on the plane though, did I mention that??

Poor Katie had to sit next to my stench all the way back to their place in California, a suburb of Maryland which is quite confusing when googling the place. There weren’t any objections to me showering before picking up her youngest Drew from preschool. Little Drew is the cutest and funniest little dude you’ll ever meet, only after not seeing him for 6 months, he ain’t so little any more! It was on the way back from his pick up that I really opened my eyes and checked out the neighbourhood. Massive three story houses, all decked out in Halloween decorations. No tall fences blocking out the neighbours, literally an open white picket fence suburb. I absolutely loved it. And when the big yellow school bus stopped out front for all the kids to hop off, it was like a scene from an American family movie.

It didn’t take me long to love the neighbourhood. But that aside, seeing Hugo and Penelope, Katie’s older two and being part of their lives again was the best thing for my jet lagged arse. Alas, arriving on Halloween eve, it was pumpkin carving time!! My lack of skills was more than evident, carving BEFORE getting all the seeds and gunk out, rookie mistake. Should have just copied the kids, they seemed to know what they were doing! Have to say, was pretty impressed with all our handiwork and add the tea light candles to the pumpkins and god damn they looked spooky!!

My crash course in American culture started with an intro to their most favourite sport (I think?!?), baseball. The local team the Nationals (Nats for short), were in the final game of 7, winner takes all for the uh, I want to say premiership?? No wait, it was the World Series. Which is mighty confusing considering only American teams were playing… Anyway, wish I could say I watched history in the making but my jet lag kicked in and after pumpkin carving those eyelids just wouldn’t stay open, I think I nodded off even before the first home run. But no need to worry, the Nats won so there were lots of replays over the coming days!! And have to say, I may have actually understood the game by the time I left!

After a much needed 12 hour sleep, I awoke to the kids all off to school and a patient Katie waiting for my jet lagged arse to get out of bed to head off on the start of our key lime pie hunt. If you’re wandering what the hell key lime pie is, don’t worry, I was too!! Since arriving in the US, Katie and her friend Kylie (snap!) had been hunting down the best key lime pie in Maryland, which gets me to what the hell is key lime pie?? Think lemon meringue pie but more limey, with the meringue bit optional. Heading to a place that claimed to have the best in the state, you can imagine the severe disappointment to find they had none left… grump. The hunt quickly turned into a coffee gathering of every female Aussie in Maryland when one after another the Aussie’s walked in, greeted with “fancy meeting you here!?!”, our party of three quickly turned into about 10ish. Loved meeting all these wonderful ladies from all over AUS, with a couple of Americans thrown in for good measure. Quickly learnt that I was saying Maryland all wrong, it’s not Mary-Land, more like Merry-Lnd, and life in the US is busy as hell, kids doing 10 sports each, vacation planning, social and craft groups… or maybe not that different to life in AUS but as someone who had been off traveling solo for a while, it was nice to just listen to normal life conversations, and it was mostly listening, I was so jet lagged I could hardly string a comprehensible sentence together. Lucky for me, the day was about to get to extreme excitement levels, nothing like Halloween to wake you up!! First of the hallowed eve festivities was Trunk-a-Treat, a smart take on Trick-or-Treat where parents and friends of Drew’s preschool open up their trunks, a boot of a car in Aussie lingo, decorate them spooky and hand out candy. The cuteness levels of preschool kids dressed up in Halloween costumes is extreme, of course with Drew being the absolute cutest ever little minja (as he pronounces it!)

To get into the Halloween spirit, Katie took Drew bear and I through a tour of the local neighbourhoods, stopping off at all the houses who had gone above and beyond to get into the Halloween spirit. Love me a massive Maryland house, add the Halloween fancy and I might just move into one of them…

Back at Katie’s, (or home as I’ll now call it, wherever I lay my head at night is home being the homeless nomad I am), with all kids home and accounted for, it was time to get into the Halloween spirit. I did find 5 minutes in London Town to put together a lame arse version of a vampire costume. Ok, well, the costume wasn’t lame, my attempt to put on white face makeup which turned into clumps on my plane dried skin, losing the glue for my fangs and having jet lagged size bags under my eyes meant my attempt to look like a scary vampire resulted in me looking more like a tired old lady in a bad wig.

Luckily the rest of the household looked bloody brilliant in their costumes, the house was lookin’ spooky and the candy was ready, only half devoured by Katie and I earlier in the day… or was that the day after???

I’ll give it to the yanks, they know how to do Halloween! Although being unseasonably warm, the neighbourhood was out in force, the candy was plenty, houses turning on the scary and the streets over run with kids trying to look scary but mostly looking happy, who wouldn’t be when you’ve got a bucket of candy bigger than your head??

Not sure there was much tricking, just lots of treating! And as expected, the costumes were epic!! A family dressed up as The Incredibles was one of my faves, as were the inflatable dinosaurs but the best dressed award goes to this little vampire who well and truly showed me how it’s done!!

Not that I’ve done many Halloween’s but that night will go down as my all time favourite forever I think, loved the spirit of the neighbourhood, all the souls dressed up and goulish looking houses, my favorite though was these kids who just made it beyond fun!!

Needless to say, the next day I was wrecked! After a Fleabag and Halloween candy binge in the morning we headed to St Mary’s, an old style American village for the yummiest Bahn Mi I’d had for a while, strangely from an Italian style bakery called Enzo’s, as well as a sneaky doughnut that tasted like Oreo heaven. No photos of the food, eaten too quickly but here’s us, enjoying some sunshine!!

After getting our tourist on, we returned to normal life of Drew’s pre-school pickup around 2.30pm and kids jumping off the big yellow school bus around 4 each day. I say this all with a massive smile on my face, having been traveling for months solo and with friends, which is an amazing life I’m so grateful for, but there is so much joy also being part of a family, being settled in a home, surrounded by people you love and having some routine each day, not to mention home cooked meals!! All this while also getting to experience another culture. While I’d always thought the American culture wasn’t all that different to ours, I’m happy to say I’m mostly wrong, as firstly evidenced with sport. Being a Friday, it was baseball game night for Hugo, and after a Panda Express run it was off to watch the game. Not only is baseball a sport you probs wouldn’t see much of in AUS but the passion of the friends and family who turn out to watch in nearly minus degrees is next level!! Loved every minute and had a few giggles along the way, all while watching Huggie who in a few short months went from having never played before to being one of the stars of the team!!

As it seems to be part of the American culture, and correct me if I’m wrong, but as a parent your weekend pretty much revolves around kids sport. And I’m not complaining one bit, I got to enjoy being part of it all and making the most of Katie’s hard work getting her kids into teams, which is mostly definitely easier said than done in the US. Our Saturday started with porridge (oh my yum!) and we were off to Drew’s T-ball game. I know you shouldn’t laugh at kids playing sport but little 5 year olds in big helmets trying to hit a ball off a stand is just so cute you can’t help but giggle. Add Drew in full catcher gear and the cuteness levels were maxed out!!!

After a cuteness overload it was off to watch Hugo kick arse at baseball again, this time with all the bells and whistles!! Each kid stepping up to the plate with a theme song and announcement, first time I’d actually heard the baby shark song. Yes I’d heard of it but had deliberately gone out of my way to make sure I never heard it. Pretty sure I’d only just gotten The Wiggles out of my head from when Marcus and Annabelle were kids. Two games down and it was time for a pit stop at a quintessential American diner, not sure if it was set up for tourists or for was just like that for reals, either way we all loved the diner experience, the meat ball sub and chocolate milkshake get a special mention!!!

And here’s where you realise I am a bit of an arsehole cos besides the yummy food and cool setup, my attention was drawn to a Dad with his two kids which is lovely but the dad was quite obese and the kids who both looked younger than 10 were not looking very healthy either, all smashing hamburgers, massive sodas and flushing it all down with ice cream. And when I say smashing, I mean it. Probably an American stereotype I was taking notice of but it irked me. Parents have a responsibility to give their kids the best opportunities in life AND keep them healthy. I could say more but I’m not a parent and I know single people ranting about what parents should do is not appreciated so rant over, but still…

Fully fed and satisfied, we were off again to Hugo’s soccer. And yes, it’s called soccer in the US, no being silly and calling it football. Hugo was once again the star of his team and one cool dude pulling off a head band to control his blonde locks. My soccer watching was however distracted by taking on Drew in a friendly match on a nearby pitch. Yeah, don’t try play soccer against an energetic 5 year old, you’ll get your arse kicked!!

All sported out for the day, kudos to Katie and Jules for being awesome parents and running all over town to keep their kids active, it was home and getting ready for more sport, but the viewing on a TV kind. Katie and Jules friends were into rugby and being the World Cup final between England and South Africa we were off to their house to watch. Having been recently schooled in rugby by the Geordie and being a newly minted British citizen, I was ready to go my hardest barracking for the English Lions, Scotland were out so the Lions were my second favorite. Unfortunately the streaming of the game didn’t work but we only cared for about 5 minutes as we all knew that England had their arses handed to them by the South Africans. The rest of the night was spent chatting by a fire pit, eating yummy food and cuddling my new bestie Delta, can’t remember what kind of dog he was but god I loved him. It’s bad to steal someone’s dog yeah????

Being the super Mum she is, Sunday morning Katie whipped up pancakes for us all, I could get used to this!! After a bit of a chill morning we headed off to the Harry Potter corn maze. No you didn’t read that wrong! If you don’t already know, I’m a huge Harry Potter geek and was luckily enough to be joined by a family of Potterheads, well the kids anyway!! After a pit stop for pizza and pasta, the ravioli of which deserves its own picture, as does the sign…

It was then off to the corn maze! Dang, forgot my Gryffindor jumper in Oz! On account of me being a Potterhead, Katie had been nice enough to wait for me to arrive before day tripping to the maze, it did mean the maze had been well and truly worked through by other visitors but the whole setup itself was a whole lotta fun, I think the kids enjoyed it too!! There was a sorting hat (Hufflepuff apparently), a slingshot quidditch, a Nimbus 2000 broomstick swing, platform 9 and 3/4, butter beer and cheesecake on a stick – ok maybe the last one isn’t so Potter but who doesn’t love cheesecake and on a stick??? Was too full to try one but something to dream about…

After living out our Potter dreams we were BITC and homeward bound… with a stop at Coldstone, unlike cheesecake, icecream just melts into the gaps… What an epic start to living in the USA!!!

P.S. Already loving the “trucks” here, check out this beast!