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Entries in Illinois (7)

Friday
Mar292013

St. Pat's Chicago Round 2

Because I am a masochist, I like to wake up around 11:30 AM, slowly drag myself into a ceramic prison cell where a mean wall demon shoots a single narrow stream of scalding hot water at me while I jump around naked and freezing except for the one square inch where the water hits where I'm obviously hot… and then upon escaping the prison I spend an hour or so burning parts of my body with an iron and putting paint on my face to...

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Thursday
Jan312013

Here's to Anthony, He's True Blue….

I've been in the company of Australians on Aussie day several times. My first such experience with the infamous Australia Day was in Italy. There were Australian flags worn as capes and bars crawled around. In general, the Aussies obviously know how to party, so on their independence day, it's no surprise that they go all out.So when an Australian co-worker got stranded in the US on January 26th, I felt the need to facilitate...

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Wednesday
Jan162013

Buongiorno Principessa!!

So I made my official reintroduction to both NYE in America and CouchSurfing all at the same time. As most of you know, I am a huge fan and advocate of CouchSurfing.com and I'd been really excited to get back into my CS groove. I didn't do nearly as much of it as I wanted to in Spain (mostly because I was in a constant state of semi-denial that I actually lived there). So I decided to go big and host a pair of Italians for the...

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Thursday
Mar172011

Happy St. Patrick’s Day My Sexy Little Leprechauns

What are you doing for St. Patrick's Day? Book cheap flights to over 150 destinations. Discover Ireland's West Coast, East Coast and everything in between with RyanAir.

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Thursday
Nov262009

A Day Dedicated to Stuffing your Face? Sign me up!


Location: Dalton, Wisconsin, USA

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s a beautiful day here on Spring Lake. The sun is out, it’s about 40 degrees F, and we are STUFFED full of Thanksgiving wonderfulness. Let me back up.

So the Cranberries, were amazing. They played such a great show and haven’t changed one bit. Sometimes I think concerts can drag on a bit, but this was the perfect length, the perfect crowd, the perfect venue. It was just very well put together. We left the show and walked Brian and Sam to a bar before heading back home to get some shut eye and pack up all of our junk.

We left Chicago, around 7 AM. Despite previous ideas, we did not pick up Brian’s brother and his friends in northern Chicago, so it was just the four of us (Dan, Brian, Emma and myself). We stopped at a Wal-Mart Supercenter just north of Chi-town and split up in to groups to grocery shop efficiently (duh, my idea – I even made a separate shopping list for each person). The best part, is that we only spent $120 including all of our food AND booze. Such a great deal. Now we hit a small problem after we got back in the car, and that was that we were already putting 4 people, plus our luggage (which included Brian’s guitar) into Wanda, who is quite small. We literally had to load the groceries in through the windows on to Emma and my laps in order to fit everything in. Let’s just say, it was not the most fun hour of my life.

After driving through the Wisconsin countryside for what seemed like forever, we finally arrived at our own perfect Thanksgiving Day lake house. I mean, seriously, I could have not picked this place better out of a catalog. The house itself is a 2.5 bedroom (two full sized rooms and a small twin bed in a ½ room) with a large living room/dining room/den area, a GIGANTIC back wrap-around porch and a huge entryway/living room/dry room. The place is HUGE - way more than we needed. There is even a washer and dryer in the basement (which has been going basically non-stop since we got here). The house is right on the water, with a small rowboat and dock attached. There’s a climbing tree, hiking trails, a huge yard. And the best part is that we are in the middle of Amish country so everyone around us is riding their horses, riding horse and buggies, we’re surrounded by bakeries, woodworking shops, tack shops, cafes. Absolutely perfect.

As soon as we got here, I started cooking. For our meal today, we had:







  • A turkey

  • Green Bean Casserole

  • Mashed Potatoes

  • Rolls
  • I also made queso for pre-dinner snack while we’re watching football and two pies for desert: a pumpkin pie and a chocolate pie. Now, this was my first Thanksgiving I’ve ever cooked the whole thing for and I was really nervous but trying not to show it so that everyone wouldn’t think I was a rookie. But everything turned out really great, nothing too overcooked, no food poisoning, and no leftovers. I’m quite proud of myself :)

    So tonight we are watching football and drinking and playing card games and practicing our band and just hanging out. Bedtime will be early tonight and tomorrow will be another day of just… doing nothing.

    XOXO

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    Now playing: Oleander - Why I'm Here
    via FoxyTunes
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    Wednesday
    Nov252009

    I'm supposed to be on vacation...


    Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Well look here. I guess I’m not really sure how to be fed up with something and then actually do something about it. I’m wrapping up at the end of an entire day of work. We woke up early this morning, I headed back to my favorite little coffee shop (I shouldn’t have a favorite coffee shop) and I have been sitting in the same table… all. day.

    I did have Dan and Emma go pick me up some Jimmy Chips from Jimmy Johns and I’ve had about 7 cups of tea. That was literally the highlight of my day. Oh, that and we found a place to go for Thanksgiving! I called my friend John, who was the guy who I met doing a Craigslist rideshare on the Texas Roadtrip back in May. His parents have a lake house north of Madison and I asked if we could have it for a couple of days and he agreed! I can't believe how lucky we are, but I'm so excited to get to see John and to have an actual home for turkey day so I can cook us a proper meal :)

    So I’m off. I can’t stare at a computer screen any longer. I’m leaving and we are going to see the Cranberries at the Riviera and this is the first show they’ve played in 7 years. I’m stoked, I can’t wait and I’m going to have a beer and try and forget about my job for a couple hours.

    Wish me luck!

    XOXO

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    Now playing: The Pogues - Love You 'Till the End
    via FoxyTunes

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    Wednesday
    Nov252009

    Take me Back to Chicago


    Location: London, Ontario, Canada

    We had so much fun last night and I’m so grateful for our wonderful hosts!! London was such a fun town and the people were great and so friendly. We hit up a little sports bar after I finished work last night to meet up with some more of Dan’s Pano friends and to watch the Leaf’s hockey game and MNF. The games were pretty uneventful and after some wings and quite a few pitchers, we decided to head to a real club. For a Monday night, this place was packed – we actually had to wait in line to get in! The bar itself was great; had two floors with different music and vibes on each. We camped out in a booth upstairs and chatted, drank and listened to the live music. It was a really great time and we got home quite late.

    After a long sleep, we left after noon and headed down to Chicago. Getting back into the US was relatively straight forward (although not nearly as much fun as getting into Canada) and the drive through Michigan and Indiana was… well… boring.

    When we arrived in Chicago, it was raining, but not too heavily. We stopped by Sam’s apartment to drop our stuff off and Dan, Brian and Sam all headed to the Metro to see the show we were supposed to see. Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to get a day off from work, so I’m missing the show to put in the hours I wasn’t able to earlier today. I’m really kind of over this whole work while on vacation thing. I was supposed to be on vacation all of last week also and didn’t break one day. I guess the only thing that’s good about this is that I will definitely have some vacation days to take and relax once I get back to Oklahoma – ok I guess that’s sort of good.

    Anyway, I’m in a coffee shop down the street from Sam’s now. Just got done with the majority of the work I needed to do today and now I’m going to go meet the kids at the Metro to grab a drink and then drive with Dan out to the airport to pick up his friend Emma who is coming in town to meet with us today and drive the rest of the drive back to Pano with Dan.

    XOXO

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    Now playing: Citizen Cope - Bullet and a Target
    via FoxyTunes
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