LA

After I landed in LA from Milwaukee my cousins picked my up from the airport and brought me to their place, it was great to see them as the last time I visited was easily 6 or 7 years ago and I was just a little kid. For the next few days I would find myself travelling around the city eating at places that Food Network hosts would envy (I put on something like 4 pounds right away) and playing with my little cousin/nephew (depending on what culture you're in). It was a great and much needed American vacation and I was able to unwind and relax a bit while at the same time was brought by one of my cousins, who was an experienced Thai traveller, to 3 Targets, 2 sporting goods stores and a few other places to get more than double the clothes I had brought and over triple the sunscreen. What's funny is that even though my luggage was now at least 30% larger than before, I have gotten much better at packing my bags and they fit even better than when I packed to leave Boston.

Not only did they help me on the packing side of things, but I was given a little notebook and immediately filled the first four pages with Thai words and phrases that I would most likely need for survival (I was given two ways to say "diarrhoea") and with the help of my nephew, worked on the pronunciation. With all that being said I felt a great deal more prepared for Thailand than before (with some real knowledge instead of web-surf-stuff) and was able to relax even more from that than from the food.

After all that it was sad to leave everyone and I wished I had more time to visit them, but they said that they are coming to Thailand in a few months so hopefully I will get the chance to see them again soon and they got me a bus to LAX (which is a confusing lil' airport if I ever saw one).