As of the weekend, we have arrived safely in San Francisco in one piece – and both sighed a breath of relief having had a manic couple of weeks which saw (between the two of us), the release of an album – with its associated gig, a masters thesis completed, quitting of two jobs, selling of cars, a court case (me vs. a bad driver), saying goodbye to 13 nieces and nephews plus 6 siblings plus parents and friends, selling the cars and packing up our entire lives.

Needless to say, it was all quite intense!

Tahiti was absolutely amazing (and amazingly expensive too, a can of coke costs around 4 dollars), but wasn’t without its drama as I came down with a nasty cold almost as soon as we got to Tahiti! That plus the hot and humid weather and extra exercise plus the time zone change made for some gnarly hypos but that’s just part of it. I decided before we left that if it turned to custard then I wasn’t going to be too self-critical about it.

All stocked up on Tahiti sunshine and slightly less white than we were when we left, we flew into LA and hit the town straight away with some friends including a delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant, a drive though Beverly Hills and Hollywood Boulevard and some celebrity haunt spotting. I then plunged into crazy highs of 18-20mmol/L for a full 36 hours before I realised that it might be a kink in the cannula (which is was). Add the cold, timezone changes, 4 hours sleep and 8 hours on a bus and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself! A kinked cannula had never happened to me before now so was a good reminder of what can go wrong with pumps.

All is back to normal now and I’m feeling a lot more human plus the cold is getting better and we’ve got 8 days in one place before we head up to Canada so it’s looking rosy.

San Fran holds promises of good food (we’ve discovered Burmese already), shopping, cafes and chilling out which is exactly what I need

The next installment won’t be for a couple of weeks most likely but it will be from our new home in Montreal! In the meantime, say hi to NZ for me.

- Aaron