I’ve been a bit behind on the blog, but I spent 10 incredible days visiting family in the US over Christmas.
I flew from London to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to visit my grandparents and catch up with my mum and sister who I hadn’t seen in a year.
The flights proved to be a bit of a nightmare, though. I’d booked with Norse to New York and American Airlines to Tulsa. Norse is a new budget airline as of July 2022 and is operated by Norwegian. On arrival, the cabin lights begin changing colour to simulate the Northern Lights which I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed and because I was flying with AA to Tulsa, this gave me less time to leave the terminal, collect my bag, and check back in again. By some Christmas Miracle, I was able to go through the fast-track Diplomats Lane at Immigration and get to the desk at the eleventh hour…however…my next flight had been cancelled and I’d been rebooked on to two more flights via Austin and Dallas! I spent the night on a comfyish leather chair between Gates 8 and 9 of Austin airport before arriving, exhausted, in Tulsa. The trip took 28hours all up, and my bags had to be collected on a flight later in the day, but at least I made it before the storm.
It snowed on Christmas Eve. The whole street was white. Temperatures went as low as -16 degrees! Luckily, it stayed around for a magical Christmas Day before going back up to 16 degrees on the 26th!
Our Christmas meals were delicious and consisted of:
Breakfast: cinnamon buns & egg casserole
Lunch: roast with cranberry salad (a cold sweet jelly with fruit)
Arvo tea: pecan pie
(I must have been too excited to eat because I forgot to take a picture of the roast!)
Tulsa is a pretty relaxed city. The buildings look very flattened due to an average of three yearly tornados. We heard the weekly tornado warning test siren at 12pm on Wednesday. In addition to being flat, almost every establishment can be driven through; there were drive-thru fast food shops, pharmacies, banks, and even weed dispensaries!
I loved going to the Gathering Place and exploring the amazing playground and communal spaces there.
We watched some classic American TV shows such as Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Shark Tank, and The Price is Right. We also streamed the new Tulsa King on Paramount+ which was both very funny and violent. We were also fortunate to go to the cinema to see the new Avatar movie in 3D...the CGI was incredible!
We took a day-trip to Osage Nation, Oklahoma, where I was fascinated by the history on display in the Osage County Historical Society Museum, as well as seeing buffalo in the Tallgrass Prairie Reserve (of which only 10% remains having once extended from Canada to Mexico).
I learnt about the tragic history of the Osage people from the museum which included:
The Osage people were driven off their native land and onto a reservation on the Pawhuska plains in the early 1800s.
In 1894, it was discovered that there were large quantaties of oil beneath their land and the Osage people quickly became very rich.
They got oil shares, houses, cars...but they were required to have financial 'guardians', who were often white.
Around 20-25 Osage people died annually from 1918 to 1931 in unsolved murders.
Much of the oil wealth was transferred from the Osage people to the guardians.
This story will be told in the upcoming movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, set in Pawhuska, and due to be released in May.
Overall, I had a really lovely time with my family. After travelling for so long, it felt luxurious being able to unpack my stuff for a bit, and not have to plan ahead. My sister and I thoroughly enjoyed looking through all of the baby pictures in Grandpa's meticulously-kept photo albums. I also loved being able to give gifts and share stories from my year. Thank you!
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