What I Did on my Summer Vacation and Who Paid for It

Dear American  Taxpayer,


I want to thank the hard  working American people for paying $242 thousand dollars for my vacation in  Spain.

My daughter Sasha, several long-time family friends, my personal  staff and various guests had a wonderful time. Honestly, you just haven't  lived until you have stayed in a $2,500.00 per night private 3-story villa at  a 5-Star luxury hotel.

Thank you also for the use of Air Force Two  and the 70 Secret Service personnel who tagged along to be sure we were safe  and cared for at all times. By the way, if you happen to be visiting the Costa  del Sol, I highly recommend the Buenaventura Plaza restaurant in Marbella;  great lobster with rice and oysters!

Air Force Two (which costs  $11,351 per hour to operate according to Government Accounting Office reports)  only used 47,500 gallons of jet fuel for this trip and carbon emissions were a  mere 1,031 tons of CO2. These are only rough estimates, but they are close.  That's quite a carbon footprint as my good friend Al Gore would say, so we  must ask the American citizens to drive smaller, more fuel efficient cars and  drive less too, so we can lessen our combined carbon footprint.

I know  times are hard and millions of you are struggling to put food on the table and  trying to make ends meet. So I do appreciate your sacrifices and do hope you  find work soon.

I was really exhausted after Barack took our family on  a luxury vacation in Maine a few weeks ago. I just had to get away for a few  days.

Cordially,

Michelle Obama

P.S. Thank you as well  for the $2 BILLION dollar trip to India!

P.P.S. Thank you, too, for  that vacation trip to Martha's Vineyard; it was fabulous. And thanks for that  second smaller jet that took our dog Bo to Martha's Vineyard so we and the  children could have him with us while we were away from the White House for  eleven days.

P.P.P.S. Oh, I almost forgot to thank you all for our "date  weekend" in New York and to say thanks also for our two-week trip to Hawaii at  Christmas. That 7,000 square foot house was great!

And finally, thanks for asking, we had a great time taking Air Force One to Chicago to tape our  segment with Oprah a couple weeks ago, replete with full security, a separate  plane for armored limousines and a full contingent of  assistants.