The Prodigal Blogger Returns

The Transportation Security Administration take their jobs very seriously. We were body scanned and had our hand luggage and /or our checked baggage rifled through at every single airport we stepped foot in. I forgot at the first airport that I had 110 mls of coconut sunscreen in my hand luggage and we got ripped out of the line and questioned. Another time  Mr. P had a breath mint in his pocket that looked like an ecstasy tablet.  I'm pretty sure that was what placed us on a watch list for every subsequent airport. At one point I was pulled aside by a security dude who, to add insult to injury, was pissing himself laughing , because apparently the bras in my hand luggage looked suspicious. The only thing suspicious about it was that he hadn't ever seen bras that huge before and he was obviously concerned I could make a Sherman Tank out of all that underwire on the 29 minute flight between islands. 

I strongly suspect that Mr. P wearing this t-shirt didn't help our cause. And I'd like to point out that my checked bags were only fully searched when they were mislabelled with Mr. P's name. Yep-it's official- my husband looks suss. 

In comparison, on my arrival back in Australia I duly declared my 345 packs of Oreos (I literally squealed when I saw the huge range in supermarkets there) and one of everything single thing Hershey manufactures, 400 York Peppermint Patties, maximum allowable amounts of cheap liquor, and my awesome wooden salad hands. I could have been a mule for a Columbian drug cartel carrying 19 kilos of A grade cocaine but because I was speaking with an Aussie accent mate, I was just waved through without a bag check. My fears of ending up on an episode of Border Security and having my Oreo stash confiscated were completely unfounded. 

It took me forever to get over the culture shock of being in another country. There were so many things that were different and not just the obvious ones like accents and driving and money and the fact that I gained an extra day that I also lost again somewhere over the Pacific en route home. America did you know your butter is completely different to ours? Is yours made from albino cows or something? And why does all your bread taste like someone fell over into the dough vat with a 20 kilo bag of sugar?  Any why are brown eggs more expensive than white eggs? Don't all eggs come from a chickens butt? What's up with your bacon? The good bit is missing.  What do you do with it? Why is your walk man at the traffic lights white and not green? Why are your light switches upside down? And why do your toilets suck everything down with a g force that was so great that I was concerned for my life every time I had to pee? I found that so amusing I had to video it.  Pondering this and other imponderables kept me amused for hours. 

American Butter 

The Aussie variety 

On the other hand American restaurant chains are the shitz. I fell in love with them and the price of booze in the US. I thought Mr. P was going to wet his pants when he bought a bottle of Canadian Club for 13 bucks. I had to remind him to start breathing again. How you aren't all obese alcoholics has me buggered.  I swear if I lived there I'd be drinking Southern Comfort like it was water and staggering to Denny's 3 times a day for fully loaded cheese fries. And I'd eat breakfast at least three times a day too. In fact , some days I did. I also defiled your bread by adding Vegemite at every possible opportunity. 

I bow before your burger greatness America. You ARE the masters. Hand you a hunk of hamburger mince and some cheese and you knock out something that is awesome in a way Australian burgers will never be. 

And you know how to do proper chocolate fudge cake too... Cheesecake Factory how I love you so. I miss you already. If I could have worked out a way to get this stuff home without it growing fur and going green I would have done it. 

It wasn't all eating and getting shit faced on cheap booze (although I have noticed an inordinately large amount of food and cocktail pictures among our holiday snaps). We did see some of the sights too. Sea turtles and lava and hydrangeas the size of my head. Pearl Harbor, a palace, gorgeous beaches and hula dancers. Most of Hawaii is incredibly beautiful. And we only drove on the wrong side of the road twice.  

And naturally I managed to accidentally stumble into a few quilt shops. And had to post 40 pounds of fabric home in secret because that was the only way of keeping Mr. P from knowing exactly what I bought to augment my already overflowing stash ....

I came home to this jar of treasures that Little P had been collecting for me since we left. It doesn't get any cuter than that. 

Things that are treasures to a three year old

On the agenda for this weekend is getting re-acquainted with my sewing machine and spending some serious time in my pyjamas. And drinking some decent tea. And sleeping. And trying to find a recipe for chocolate fudge cake because the 12 pounds I put on overseas simply wasn't enough.