Day 26: Christmas Day!

Day: Saturday 25th December

Said goodbye to the lads at about 6ish when they left for Cancun.
I got to sleep in for a couple more hours til 8 before checking out and catching the bus to the airport. Man, public transport in this city is soo convenient.

The 4 hr flight to milwaukee in wisconsin was fine, i slept most of it.
The flight then from Milwaukee to Appleton was about 18 minutes long so as soon as i put my ipod in i was being told to turn it off again lol.
Mike picked us up. He's another guy I knew from the exchange students at student acommodation.
He lives in a little town called Fon Du Lac - very tiny and pretty rural - near the Great Lakes northern wisconsin.
Wisconsin is a state known for it's cheeses, its drinking and it's beer, and it's manufacturing. Mike finished uni this year and is now an intern for one of the companies that make big-industry trucks like snow ploughs, fire engines etc. Lucky guy is getting placed out in Singapore in February to start the company's transition into the asian markets.

True to wisconsin nature, he gave me a shot or two of Baileys as soon as we were in the car.
Drove us through the snow-covered properties out to his grandma's place where we had a huge kris kingle and christmas dinner. Had to try everything so was soo stuffed..barely had room to try many of the desserts..i'm going back obese, its a fact.
Mike's family is rather convoluted so lots of the people there were his uncles and aunties but once or twice removed - i lost track - but they were all extremely friendly and welcoming and fascinated with my accent and australia in general. Couldn't have asked for a more warming white christmas experience.
They were all royally jolly big people who love drinking, food, and the local football team the Packers.

The Packers were the first team to win the Superbowl. Ever. The superbowl trophy is actually named after the first coach. So the national sport stems from this area, so everyone from birth is a fan, and a hardcore fan at that. Very cool trivia.

Mike and I eventually left to go visit his step-dad whom they knew all their life so kept in contact with him.
He's a man of projects. He's building his entire house, has a wicked hangout downstairs with a bar, pokie machines, darts table. He fixed up a couple of camaros and also likes tinkering with very old computer parts from back in the days when they were green and black screens. We played a game of darts and pool before taking mikes brother home with us.

Mikes friend met us up at his house before we went to one of the local bar/pubs where we just had beers and played pool. People from wisconsin are country folk and know how to drink so needless to say we got drunk. A jug of beer was $5. Bottles of a nice beer were about $1.50. Shots were $2.

I'm going back obese, i think i said it before.