Dallas with Big Sister

Well my sister's 6 week visit was coming to a close and it was hard to tell her how fantastic and wonderful it was to spend time with her. I couldn't tell her too much personally because I would start crying and goodbyes between us always gets teary. We don't spend time together often and certainly not for 6 week blocks on a holiday. I hope she reads this here and knows how much I love her, how much I enjoyed being with her, that I miss her dearly and more so as we both get older, and that I am so lucky to have her as my sister. You see, I've got tears in my eyes now as I type this. Love you big sister. xx

To finish her American adventure, we flew to Dallas to see the Fort Worth cowboy city and do the JFK experience in downtown Elm St, Dallas. Now, it's been a fairly constant 6 weeks of travelling and sight-seeing so we were all dragging the chain. But, go hard or go home I say. We'd been out the night before to see Margaret Cho so it was a little bit late getting home. We had a 7am flight out of DC so it was an early start at about 4.30am. Well, things didn't quite go to plan. Here's my post off Facebook.

Woke up to my sister shaking me, it's 5.10am, shit I totally missed the 4.30am alarm, she's dressed and ready to roll. Meant to get Uber at 5.15 to airport. Quick math, yep, can still do this and make plane. Deb still sound asleep. Jumped up to shower, a bit too quick, woah, feeling woozy, yep gonna faint (I am a professional fainter so I know the drill). Laid down on the bathroom floor in my birthday suit ready for it. Woke up to panic stations, again to my sister yelling at me and Deb yelling 911. Both were wondering WTF happened? Thankfully 911 not called, all good, just too quick and overtired. Aborted the flight plan, slept all morning and managed to get the later flight to DALLAS tonight. Pity we missed our Fort Worth tour but it's JFK day tomorrow.

So yes, I've fainted a few times during my years and while Deb is a little used to it, she gets scared and hates it. Fair enough. Apparently my eyes were wide open and I was pretty stiff. Deb wasn't sure if I was breathing!! They reckon I was out for about 5 minutes but that can't be right? Anyway, a good sleep fixed it but I'm annoyed that we missed our flight and the tour of Fort Worth. My sister and I had a good laugh about it that night in bed as we shared a hotel room - some sisters never grow up.

We only had one day in Dallas and I was familiar with the JFK stuff as Deb and I had been there in April. Dallas post

We slept in a little and enjoyed a nice breakfast. Took the train to Dallas and found out quickly that the Texas State Fair was on (runs for 3 weeks). Wow, I would love to have gone but we just couldn't squeeze it in. 

In Dallas, we took the JFK Trolley tour which was a one hour trolley drive along the route JFK drove and the route Lee Harvey Oswald took after the shooting. We drove past the spot where Dallas Police Officer Tippet was shot and the movie theatre that Oswald was finally captured. We also drove past the police station where Jack Ruby shot Oswald. The whole trip was narrated to explain what was happening moment by moment. It's a great way to live the experience and prepare you for the museum. 

The Sixth Floor Museum is the JFK assassination museum on the sixth floor of the former School Book Depository. This museum is excellent and you do a self guided audio tour around the museum. It continues to be one of, if not THE, most interesting mystery of the modern day. Who shot JFK? Why? I enjoyed reading all the exhibits again and since my last visit, I've watched a documentary called The Lost Bullet which was done in 2013 and  tries to answer what happened to the first bullet fired at JFK. It re-evaluates the famous Zapruder film that shows the murder of JFK and states that Zapruder stopped filming and missed the first shot fired which changes the timeline of the bullets fired making it possible that the first bullet hit a traffic signal. The documentary also features other home movies taken on the day. It's worth watch if you're a JFK fan or conspiracy theorist cause this blows it all away. 

 

 

The photo of JFK and Jackie above is a collage of tiny photos of each other. So JFKs photo is made up of tiny tiny photos of the Jackie photo and vice versa. Very cool.

We had an early dinner and tried to get to bed early as it was going to be another early start as we both had 7am flights out of Dallas. I was going back to DC and my sister was heading back to Australia. Thankfully I heard all THREE alarms, woke early, didn't faint and we both made our flights. We took an Uber and had to get out at different terminals which was a good thing as it made for a quick huggy goodbye in the car and minimised tears and sobbing. I hate goodbyes. I slept all the way to DC and the house felt and still feels very empty without her here. Cricket misses her too and both dogs looked for her for a few days when we come home in the car...wondering where the other person was? I was pretty tired for a few days and caught up slowly on things at home and got back into routine.

 Forgot to mention that I went to a chef presentation by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. They are very famous chefs and a friend invited me to go (my sister came also). They have released a new book called SWEET which is chock full of awesome baking recipes. I've already made a Spice Cake which was pretty good for a first attempt. I'll be making a few others as they are pretty special.

There are Ottolenghi bakeries in London and they are super popular. I'd never heard of either of them but I enjoyed listening to them talk and learning more about the culinary field.

It's Halloween and the houses are decorating their yards and verandahs with scary stuff and pumpkins. I've got into it a little bit this year but putting our Amish pumpkins outside and hanging some pumpkin and fairy lights on the verandah (porch for the US folks). I had hoped to carve the big pumpkin with my sister but we didn't get time. I'm thinking of having a last minute attempt over the weekend and I'm sure it will be a messy job and look even more evil than planned. 

I finally got to my first cooking class - it was a knife skills class for 3 hours. We cut up lots of vegetables for stir fry and I learnt some good tricks. The class was a mixed skill level and I was cringing inside as I watched others cutting with their knives. Now I'm no expert but some people were a little wobbly for my comfort. I ended up turning away and not looking because I was scared they were going to cut a finger off and then I'd faint at the sight of blood - cause you now know I'm a professional fainter right !!  We then had a raw whole chicken and they taught us how to cut a chicken into pieces. I admit I was a little squeamish at pulling the chicken bits but it was a great technique to know. One lady had to leave the class cause she couldn't cope with it - poor luv. We finished the lesson by cooking a chicken stir fry and it was pretty nice. This cooking school offers volunteer roles so I am keen to volunteer to help with classes in order to learn more things without doing a class but they also give you a discount if you volunteer for a certain number of classes. 

And the cooler weather has hit us after a long delayed summer. We're searching the drawers for winter running gear and waiting for daylight savings to end next weekend (2 Nov). But winter will be here soon and I wonder if it will be a super cold snow winter after a pretty hot summer.

I took this photo of Cricket as he slept while I ironed. He's such a beautiful boy. The dogs are getting back into regular walks again now that the travel season is over so we are all on the path to eating better and getting fitter. Love these two.