usa part one: Michigan

We flew into Detroit, arriving on Thursday morning April 23rd. As soon as we dropped off our luggage and got cleaned up, we headed out for thai food! which was the number one thing we’d been looking forward to eating on this trip. We spent a few lovely days visiting with all kinds of family. My parents had driven out from Maine for the wedding, and we also got to meet up with my uncle David and his girlfriend Liz, who live in Grand Rapids. Then we spent time with Mike’s dad Sandy and his wife Cheri and all their lovely family, and we met Mike’s adorable new niece Riley (three months old!) and of course we spent time with Mike’s mom Bonnie and her now-husband Les, whose wedding was the reason for our whole trip! and all of their families.

There were so many delicious and fun family dinners, it’s impossible to recount them all, hopefully it is sufficient to say that we were hospitably received and very well fed.

The wedding was lovely, it was held at an old arts club in downtown Detroit, called the Scarab Club, right next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The upstairs club room is absolutely beautiful, an arts & crafts style lounge with awesome architectural details. The wooden beams have been signed by hundreds of artists who’ve come to visit Detroit since the club was opened in the 1920′s.

after the ceremony we had a delicious meal and a musical performance by two cello players.

Then we killed a few hours wandering around downtown Detroit (yikes!) in our wedding togs, until it was time to meet Sandy and Cheri and Robin for some delicious BBQ at the famous Slow’s Barbeque. It was totally awesome and delicious, as promised. (this was the other top food we’d been looking forward to eating in the USA!)

back to the US of A.

it’s time for our annual trip back to the northern hemisphere!! mike left first, and I followed a week later. my last week in Buenos Aires was totally crazy, as I had a HUUUGE screenprinting project to finish up before the trip, and I was still unpacking and cleaning and moving-into our new house (we had arranged for some nice folks to come stay in our apartment with the dog while we were out-of-town, so we wanted to get the apartment into decent, livable condition!), and then I got the worst head cold right before I left, so I ended up staying up until the wee hours the night before, finishing this work project and sniffling and sneezing and wheezing and then the morning before my flight i was running all over town trying to tie up loose ends and run errands and find cold medicine and i had about 12 minutes to pick out all my clothes for the trip and pack my bags. I did my classic rushed-packing-job resulting in way too much stuff and really heavy suitcases. Normally I don’t like taking cold medicines (and thus don’t have any in my house) but I was terrified that my head would actually explode during flight so I desperately swallowed as many decongestant-type pills as I could get my hands on. I flew out of Buenos Aires and had a layover in Santiago, Chile. Then flew from Santiago overnight to New York City. Then I had 5 hours to loiter inside of JFK airport before flying to Chicago. Mike met me at the airport in Chicago, about 24 hours after I’d stepped into the airport in BA! (i was SO happy to see him!!!). We spent the night in Chicago and then early in the morning we took Amtrak to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and arrived at Mike’s dad’s house just a few hours before the wedding.

Spent the next few days in suburbia, enjoying North American delicacies like pancakes and bacon and oatmeal cookies, and getting to know Michigan, Mike’s hometown, and all of Mike’s family, who were all very very sweet and generous and took great care of us!!