Okay so I lied, it took me until today to post about my visit to the Midwest. What you guys did not know is that I have been sick since Tuesday and with that I have been very fatigued. I also just spend an hour trying to upload photos but the blogger wont let me, so I will link them. I even downloaded 3 other browsers but they would not even connect to the wireless network of the hotel. So please excuse the delay. I know you all are waiting anxiously for this post, and because there are more people than usually reading my blog I will tell you about my whole trip. So this is going to be a long post and I know you will read all of it and not just scroll to the part about Jin :-).
I flew out to Chicago on Wednesday morning catching an 5:45am flight (damn that was early). I had not slept much the night before and was feeling pretty icky. I tried to sleep on the plane but a young boy behind me decided to use my seat for Karate practice and his baby sister insisted on high pitch screams as form of communication. My former Host father, Jeff, came and picked me up from the airport. He had said to drop him of at the office and then I could use the car.
I headed out to Crystal Lake and met up with my former Host mom Joanne and my friends from Switzerland for brunch. Well they ate I picked on mine. It was great to see Evelyn and Michel. Erin the youngest of Jeff and Joanne’s children joined us as well. Erin and I always had a special bond since it was her I spend most of my time with when I was the families Au pair. I taught her to ice skate, roller blade and swimming and we did lots of other fun stuff like playing dress up, games and watch Free Willy about a hundred times.
After brunch we headed to Joanne’s house getting a package ready to mail to Evelyn’s dad in Brazil. We took it to the post office and it took forever!!!!!! Afterwards we could not decide on what to do as they had to be back at the house by 5 to go to the baseball game (this was the reason the BBQ was canceled - to see a minor league). We settled on going to Coldstone Creamery. While I was paying for our ice cream the guy was asking me what language we spoke. I told him technically we needed three languages to order. Michel only speaks French so him and Evelyn speak that to one another, Evelyn and I would speak German to one another and we would speak English to Erin. Can you guess the guys response? While we were sitting outside enjoying our ice cream some guy walked up and asked if we had just graduate high school and were going to college ??!?!??!?!? We laughed and Erin told him she just graduated middle school while I was in college and Evelyn and Michel were not. He went on asking if we could do his survey as he thought we were under 24. We told him our data would not be good as were are older (three of us) than 24 and we were from outside the US. To bad he was totally cute.
After I dropped these guys off at Joanne’s house I headed to Jeff’s place where I was going to crash (in my old room) and I was greeted happily by Bailey and Baby the two border collies the would not leave my site. (They even managed to squeeze in the twin bed with me). After a bit of rest we headed out for dinner. Originally we were going to have a BBQ at Jeff’s parents with Evelyn, Michel, Erin and her brother Mitch and Jeff. However when Erin asked her mom if she could go she found out about the plans for the baseball game. So the rest of us just went to get some pizza at Nicks. We had a nice dinner here is a photo of Jeff and his dad. During dinner I got a call from Evelyn, I had asked her to let me know if she was going with us to Jin or if I was going to drop them off at Six Flags. I was surprised to hear that they were back already - it turned out they never made it to the game, they had been unable to find the field.
The next morning Mitch drove me to the rental station to get my car as I did not want to put the 400+ miles on Jeff’s van. I went to get Evelyn, Michel and Erin and off we were. I had printed out instructions to Jin’s shop and I knew I had to pass Six flags on the way up there. So we hit the road following the instruction (instead of me going the way I knew to go to six flags). So its been like an hour and we are in Wisconsin and no sign of Six Flags or Gurnee. So I pull over to get directions and it turns out we had taken a 50 mile detour and instead of getting to Six flags by noon it was after 1pm.
I called Jin to let her know we'd be late and she said that was fine as she was late getting the quiche in the oven. It seemed to take forever to get to Jin’s and we ended up having to stop to get something to eat before we got there. It was a little after 3pm that we finally got of the interstate in Manitowoc from there it is just a few more miles.
We pulled up in front of the shop, which I was surprised o find in a house within a residential area. Somehow I'd imagine it being in downtown between stores somewhere. Upon entering we were greeted by Jin (with a hug) and David. Brioche hear us coming in so we asked to meet her too. After meeting Jin’s mom and later her dad we got right to the important part of the visit - FOOD. Jin told us we could start with whatever we wanted but being a good role model to Erin - I said lets start with the quiche and then we had dessert. We all took our seats and Brioche did as well and enjoyed lunch. Brioche had her quiche cut up and ate it as a proper lady would do. She was so cute, Erin took pics and even made a video but I have not been able to get these. Anyhow after quiche we moved on to dessert - now remember I wasn't feeling well so I could not try as many as I wanted but I did my best. I LOVED them all (you saw the photos on Jin’s post) but my absolute (I will fight you till death for it) favorite was the White Chocolate Strawberry Mouse Cake. I could not help myself I just kept picking away on it.
Since we had gotten there so late and had to be back at Six Flags at 8pm our time was to leave was quickly coming. Of course not before me licking the spatchula and posing for a few more pictures so you can see this was REAL. (Did I mention I hate having my pic taken - so you better be greatfull!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) For those of you not trusting the pictures- no they have not been airbrushed. Jin is truly that beautiful, David truly that handsome and Brioche soooo cute. She is very well trained to and knows the price of Mommys pastries as she went over and took it out of my purse. She wasn’t about to let us have any freebees. She is very clever for example she was chewing on the cloth wrapped around this tree. Jin gave her a chew toy to play with instead - and what does the pup do? She wrapped the toy in the cloth and continues to chew on it until Jin goes and put some peppermint oil on it. After saying goodbye to what felt like old friends we headed back to Illinois.
No Traffic and no detours so we ended up getting to Six Flags 30 min early. We called Evelyn and Michel as they were standing inline for the Superman ride. We ended up waiting for an hour and Erin was being tortured as she really wanted to go on that ride and we parked right in front of it. By the time we got home all of us were ready for bed. Erin had hoped to go to a late show for Superman returns but even she was to tired.
Friday Erin and I went to an early show of Superman. I tell you what I'll step on his toes for a flight any day, man he is HOTTTTTTTTTT. I caught the train in the city in the afternoon to go my meeting. Dinner last night was awesome, I could not believe all the vegetarian choices - and I do not mean salad. I did not take pics as I am sure my colleagues would have found that strange.
Today is all day meetings (actually wrote this in the meeting - please don't tell anyone) I am still debating about what I am doing tonight- besides typing up these 15 pages and homework. I guess since I am here alone I'll get room service and watch some TV. Today is the first day that I am feeling better so maybe I'll venture out of my room and roam the streets of Chicago.
And that did it, at that point all joy had gone. I knew then and there I didn't want anything to do with that cash. So I was going to give it all to her. Of course I was $14 short - $13 that I had given to Jin as her share and the $1 which chips I didn't cash since I liked it as a souvenir. But Karma must have been on my side as I made exactly $14 in cash tips so I stuffed it all in her purse.
