US tripping

My wife ,Fiona, and I, flew the long way round to the States ie via Abu Dhabi with ETIHAD airways and after a stopover and 34 hrs of flying we hit New York( my 2nd time here) and after the longest custom check we've ever had of any country we have been to,we got to our loft apartment on the 10 th floor of an old Pasta factory in Brooklyn with one of the best views overlooking Manhattan, and just down the road was MOLLUSK surfshop. Its in the heart of a Jewish Hasidics ( the ones with the pig tails and the big black hats) community and one of the most coolest surf shops ever , graffiti and the usual shit you find around the streets surround it ,but its like a tropical island in the middle of chaos. I met Johnny the ass. manager( thats assistant ) and also Alberto from the San Francisco Mollusk. It was what I call a real surfshop a great array of boards and books etc. and a real hardcore surfer talking to you who runs the shop ,we chatted a lot about Australia and what I had done and am doing , generally surf talk, and it made my 2nd trip to the Big Apple a great one but hell a cold one....... After a week in N.Y. we flew to Chicago , I had never been here before and it was an eyeopener after N.Y. Its a clean city by American city standards no graffiti and the traffic in the city constantly ran smoothly. Full of beautifully built Art Deco 1920-1930s buildings and people we met were cool . we then went and stayed in a log cabin on a river in Michigan State for few days and I looked up THIRD COAST SURFSHOP in New Buffako on Lake Michigan.... now speaking of hard core this is it the water temp is at its highest of 15 c in summer and Fn freezing the rest, they do get some fair waves though at times a bit guttless . I met Ryan Gerard who owns the shop and, his assistant( whose name I've forgot) and again warm greetings and good surf talks, Ryan had been to the Noosa Festival of surfing this year so he had a hoot and is looking forward to the next time.......... The sum of it all for me was some wonderful longboards that Mollusk had that are made under the Kookbox label , these are Joel Tudors boards and they were beautifully done in shape and glass and also the wooden Danny Hess's, lovely ! so after the States we stopped over in Dubai, on the way home, and apparently, they do get some surf there ,but unless you have a lot of money to spend and love really dry hot and dusty weather leave it off your list of places to go. So if you ever get over there look both these shops up and tell em
TIKI sent ya