Christmas starts with magical martinis…so I spent Christmas this year in Chicago again although this time with Jackie and Nigel who stayed home this year (yay).  Xmas eve on Monday night was a night of catchup, dirty martinis (North Shore Gin really is the best gin in the world), lots of wine and fantastic snacks.  Xmas day on Tuesday started with a lazy breakfast before opening presents and planning the day’s movie going (1. Skyfall – he really is the best Bond after my beloved Sean and 2. Abraham Lincoln – who knew he was shot? Certainly not covered in my school history classes, but hey now I know and by an actor no less).  A great way to spend Xmas day is actually going to the movies, lots of fun.  Dinner meant Jackie cooking up a storm (Moroccan Chicken) and more dirty martinis (Deaths Door Gin really has the potential for putting you there actually), lots more wine, too much port (final count only realized a day later) – yes we were all a bit dusty the next morning (well OK Nigel and I were – Jackie actually worked) but a good time was had by all.

Then it was Wednesday = recovery day – I bicycled off to get more spices from the most incredible spice store in the world that just happens to be in Chicago (in 0 degree weather – I am a legend), I found an amazing French bakery with the best coffee and macaroons, which were essential after my Scott of the Antarctic adventure (OK so I did feel virtuous after riding around in the snowy Chicago weather and a little deranged, yet somewhat French with a baguette in my bicycle basket – albeit a frozen one by the time I got back).  A healthy dinner of delicious sushi (sans martinis lest we actually land on Deaths Door) and a movie.  This movie was the most amazing combined effort in movie ordering – Step 1 – order a movie from Netflix (1st one – not so good, so find another one after 10 mins of deciding we should put it out of it’s misery), Step 2 – Discover Netflix is now down and we can’t watch better movie that we ordered, Step 3 – Try millions of times to get to Netflix on TV, PCs, Macs etc….then give up that movie and attempt I-Tunes  for another movie “Arbitrage” (an hour to download – really?? and then some online help to deal with the stupid new I-Tunes interface, Steve Jobs would be horrified with what they’ve done wouldn’t he?  Well I damn well am and now have a lesson to go learn how to use the stupid new version which is not intuitive at all), Step 4 – aaaaahhhh there is Richard Gere and all is well again in the world (really going to the actual movie theatre was a lot less hassle).

Thursday dawns and it’s snowing – sooooo, you know you are a dedicated massage devotee when you walk a mile and a half through snow to get there (I know I’m sounding old right now but at least it’s not trudging with bare feet to school through snow etc etc)….but damn if I don’t feel great now after a fantastic massage and the very delicious Vietnamese sandwich from my beloved Saigon Sisters before I left Chicago.  Finally back home in NY – after the flight which saw me staring out the window fascinated whilst they sprayed stuff all over the plane wings to deal with the snow – at least that’s what I assume was happening given no one else on the flight seemed remotely concerned with this situation going on out my window and I didn’t want to be the only person (read here – Aussie with no clue about the effect of snow) on the plane with NO idea what they were actually doing – what was that stuff anyway???