We're there!

So we made it! 12 hours flying from Auckland to San Francisco, 4 hours in transit there, then another 4 hour flight to Chicago and everything was smooth. I was praying like crazy throughout - that our bags would be safe and we wouldn't get held up at customs, that our plane would stay in the air (it was a really bumpy flight across the Pacific, but we got used to it after a while). 

We made sure to fill Josh up with a coffee at San Francisco. ;)

The medium sized coffee was easily the size of an extra-large in NZ, so I was glad I didn't pop to the full-size.

And now we are here in Lansing, Illinois. Our first impressions...
- Lansing is a really pretty area. The neighbourhoods are tree-lined and the houses are very cute and well maintained. And they pretty much all have beatiful lawns. There are also quite a few parks around. There were a couple of houses that had letter boxes that were made as little model replicas of the house they belonged to. :)

- We walked around for 2 hours this afternoon to the grocery store which was really nice (although its hot here at the moment being the start of summer) and it is going to take some getting used to crossing the road and making sure we look the right way!

- A minor thing, but having come from winter it's strange for it to be currently 7.30pm and its still light and sunny outside.
- Money. They have a lot of it. In so far as there are just so many coins and notes! Plus they all pretty much look the same. We handed over a big bunch of $1 bills at a grocery store this afternoon and I was compelled to apologise for all the change (like you would in NZ), but the cashier just took it in his stride, they must be used to it. :)

- Just thought I'd throw this in there; we woke up today (at 2pm hehehe) ready to have some breakfast, and our super amazing NZ friends whose house we are staying us left us a very fun bag of goodies to keep us going. In which were some breakfast cereals the likes of which you can only find here in the States ( they definitely didn't have them in the UK that's for sure. So we got to have Cheerios and Peanut Butter Toast Crunch cereal for brekkie! Here it is pictured with the humongous gallon bottle of milk. :) I'm always up for trying new things, so I had a bowl of each. :D

- Yes the cheese is orange (more orange than we are used to anyway). Some very generous people supplied us with some milk and bread, blocks of cheese (and some exciting US candy :D), and there is this very cool block of marbled cheese. 

We used it on our dinner tonight. ;)

- Also the drivers seem to be very polite. We were waiting to cross a road at the head of a 'T' junction, and a guy had just driven up to turn out of it. He saw us and then went so far as to reverse back to let us cross! Then we came up to a driveway where a guy in a truck had pulled up to leave from, and he apologised to us out of the window for not giving way to us. Seems really nice that way (unless its just a road rule that I don't know about). :) I don't think you find it as much in NZ.

All in all we are loving experiencing different things. It's a great adventure, and we are so thankful to have the opportunity! Tomorrow hopefully we will get to go and visit the seminary, so we are looking forward to that. :) In summary, a great first day in the States.