i like butter, don't you?

After two months of packing and unpacking my suitcase I’m back in Wellington. I spent seven weeks of summer in America.

While growing up, some of my friends had summer cottages along the lake and other friends drove to famous landmarks with their parents. My family drove to Florida every summer. Driving away from a hot summer towards an even hotter one makes as much sense as taking a hot bath in Death Valley. But July means summer vacation, free from the burden of school. It’s the only time a family can holiday together. By the time I was a teenager I hated it, so I avoided Orlando until this year.

Within a week of arriving in Chicago my family flew to Disney in Orlando, Florida and we spent ten days together. I was nervous. Before my nieces and nephews were born, I was the youngest boy in my family, the second youngest child in my extended family. I’ve never been around kids. Babies, yes, but they only dribble.

The first day at the Magic Kingdom was shocking. Everything seemed tiny, like I was walking through my primary school hallway and thinking were the lockers and chairs always this small? But the parks are made for little people, and it seemed like they had fun, I think. It’s hard to tell. Children are hard to read.

For example one day at Animal Kingdom it was around 37 °C (98 °F). To battle the heat we decided to go on a water ride. It was a large family raft, where everyone sits together, and as the raft floats down a river it’s squirted with water. But my niece didn’t want to go because she didn’t want to get wet. She was a little irritable from the heat. She lost the battle with her parents. She got wet. As the line was unusually short we wanted to go again but she fought and whined to stay off the ride.

At home my sister asked, “What was your favorite part of the theme park today?”

“The water ride,” she said.

What.

My brother-in-law told me to practice safe sex.

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New York was the same size. Most of my favorite spots were different. I stayed a few blocks away from Central Park with a friend I met in Wellington. Throughout my stay she was plagued with psoriasis, which made her itchier than a baby with chicken pox.

Her doctor asked for samples of everything her body secreted and excreted. Urine, saliva, feces. It was three days of planned meals and frequent visits to the toilet, to bag and tag her leftovers. She boxed her stuff to post to California, where her preferred doctor practiced.

On the way to the mailbox we were distracted by mannequins and shop windows along the avenue, so we ended up browsing merchandise with a box of excrement in tow. “Megan, I don’t think we should be carrying that through these stores,” I whispered.

She laughed, “Don’t worry Timmy. No one knows. It’s our little secret.”

She calls me Timmy because once upon a time she found me similar to the retarded South Park child in the wheelchair.

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A few years ago, after a friend in Wellington drove through America, someone asked her to describe the states in one word. She picked consume. At the time I couldn’t see it, but because I returned to Wellington with two suitcases each weighing 25 kilograms (55 pounds), I can see her point.

Most tourists want to see Los Angeles or New York, skipping Chicago altogether. Big mistake. It’s clean. There’s a big frickin’ freshwater lake. It feels friendly.

My friends in the city showed me their favorite bits of their neighborhood, and their pride reminded me of the time Amber arrived in Wellington. I took her to all of my local spots and we had a great time. I still felt the same when I landed at the airport in Wellington. It’s good to be back.

For the past few weeks I’ve been in Hawai’i, on the beach, usually watching surfers. Tough life.

I could only watch the surfers because I’m just a beginner. Those waves look small but they’re easily 12 feet high. I saw a man’s surfboard snap it half.

Some other remarkable memories from my three week vacation:

• a street peddler attempted to sell me tickets to a shooting range where I could fire “real guns”
• a customs official asked if I brought marmite. I asked if it was illegal, and she said, “No, I just don’t like the stuff. Yuck.”
• some Hawaiians are fat. Bigger than midwestern fat. I think their island genes compound the fatty foods
• a stranger gave me a lift, and I asked him what to see in O’ahu. He said, “I don’t know. I usually drink with my friends. It’s safer that way.” I didn’t ask
• my parents and I saw lava flow into the ocean at Volcano National Park

I mostly slept in the sun. It was so warm…