Hello!

We are now in Chicago which is a nice city - lots of trees even though they are brown at the moment! Spring has not arrived yet and it was snowing when we arrived but has been sunny and 'crisp' ever since which is nice! We went to a huge conservatory yesterday full of massive palms and all sorts of lovely flowers - there were a couple of crazy white salamanders which were cool! We are staying with Jeff & Kristi who we met at Ana & Doug's wedding so that's fun!

So, we travelled from San Francisco down to Dallas on the Greyhound (three days on a bus ... we stank) and got asked if we were homeless when we arrived in Dallas - the guy told us where we could get free food and milk which was nice of him but we didn't go there! Anyway, Dallas was fun - we met some really nice people including Nathan (Texan) and Spencer (London) and we all hung around together for the week. Conrad taught me how to shoot (I tried a pistol and an M4 assault rifle) which was a bit against my hippy principles but kind of fun if I'm honest! We saw the spot where JFK was shot, went to a huge St.Patrick's day parade which was fun and just generally enjoyed Dallas and it's inhabitants. WE LOVE TEXAS! :)

Ok, then we were going to get the train to St.Louis but all trains North were cancelled due to crazy flooding and a broken bridge so we ended up on the Greyhound again - this time for only 15 hours which wasn't so bad, nobody asked us if we were homeless this time! St.Louis was ok, not our favourite place but they had some nice buildings and we went on an old paddle steamer down the (flooded) Mississippi river and admired the arch. We also went to the St.Louis zoo which has lots of endangered animals and is free to get in - we loved the prairie dogs and the silverback gorillas!

We are off to Boston on Monday where we will meet up with mum and dad at the end of the week - we're really looking forward to it! Then we will all have a week in NY with Adam & Sarah too so good times are ahead!

Take care and keep smiling!
Hugs,
Philippa & Conrad
xx