Walking the Mag Mile

Anyone who visits Chicago must experience the magnificent mile at least once.

It's full of tall buildings with beautiful architecture, high end shopping, twinkling lights at night, and TOURISTS. This is where all the tourists flock to on weekends, which is the reason why you find no true Chicagoans there at that time! It's really difficult to walk, especially when you have crowds of people stopping to watch the living statues, take pictures, and do silly things like tie their shoes in the middle of the sidewalk.

Michelle and I walked up and down the mag mile until we built up an appetite big enough for The Cheesecake Factory. Actually I don't think there's anyone who has a stomach large enough to finish an entire meal there and have cheesecake for dessert. Or if they do they'd be eating enough calories for their entire week!

I ordered the cobb salad and Michelle had nachos and by the time we were finished eating, it looked as though neither of us had even touched our food! Ginormous servings. We took some red velvet cheesecake to go, which is pretty much the best cheesecake that exists!

What happened to my mouth?

We also walked around Chinatown, which was nothing special, but warranted a one (and only) time visit.

It was a sunny but chilly day. Too bad we didn't have the weather then that we're having now. A high of 20 degrees C today!

Ba Ba Reeba and Broadway

Continuing on from yesterday's post, me and the BFF spent our crazy night out drinking sangria and watching a Broadway show. That's as crazy as we (me mostly) get :)

I've written about Cafe Ba Ba Reeba before and every time I go I end up loving it more and more. We ordered a pitcher of sangria, which should be illegal it's so good.

Cheers. Prost. Slainte.

We also ordered the pinxto platter which is perfect for sharing. Bite size morsels of deliciousness.

Man oh man, those balls of goat cheese and lemon, which Michelle is eating below, are scrumptious. Melt in your mouth. Can't get enough of that goodness.

After dinner we hopped on the L and headed downtown to see Billy Elliot on Broadway.

The train was empty so of course Michelle took advantage and showed me what she's been learning in her pole dancing class ;)

Christmas decorations are up already!

Christmas lights too, although I'm not sure if those are up year round or not.

And here's a scary dude who wanted to take a picture of Michelle and I. Ummm, no thanks. So he hopped in and ruined a perfectly good photo!

Next up is the inside of the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, which I very promptly got in trouble for taking. Tsk tsk. I was even trying to be discrete but those theatre stewards have eagle eyes! It's really quite a gorgeous theatre.

And that was that! Billy Elliot was seriously disappointing though. Way too long. A bit boring. Too much talking. Not enough dancing. And Billy was Asian. Now, I have nothing against Asians but it's not very believable to have an Asian child, two white parents, plus a white brother. And the grown up version of Billy was also white. So, so, so, so sad because I was looking forward to this musical for a long time. Oh well. I would not recommend it.

Other than that, it was a great night out with my BFF!

The BFF Has Landed

She's here, she's here! My BFF in Chicago!

First stop, deep dish for lunch!

We headed over to Gino's East in my neck of the woods for some pizza and oh my, what a good decision. No line ups like the locations downtown, plus the cutest Bulgarian server ever. EVER. He was something else. He laid everything down so daintily and gently, gave us free dessert, and even knocked out the line "your wish is my command".

We ordered the lunch special which included salad, personal sized pizza, and pop. For $5.99. Good deal! Plus lots of leftovers!

I must say, the personal sized deep dish tastes a bit different than a full sized pizza - less crust, which is not necessary a bad thing. I told Michelle that it gives us an excuse to try a different pizza place next time she visits :)

While heading back to my place, Michelle had to take a picture of the gas prices here. She was OUTRAGED. SHOCKED. DISGUSTED. Or maybe just surprised. Thank goodness we walk mostly everywhere and get gas in the suburbs where it's much cheaper.

Michelle met the Bamster and thinks he looks like a horse. This is his favourite thing to do when he first meets someone. He gets right under your legs for prime petting position! It can be a little awkward especially when you're not expecting it!

Next up: Our crazy night out on the town!

Faves of 2010 (So Far)

So far in 2010 I have read 43 books. Close to a book a week, with almost two months left! I think I can, I think I can. Let me preface this by saying that a lot of the books I read are admittedly "fluff". Over Christmas vacation when I have two weeks off, I can easily read 5 books. What can I say? I like chick lit and I like quick, easy reads. The best part of reading, for me, is to get away from it all. If this requires too much thinking, it doesn't work.

Looking at my goodreads account, I have ranked 1 of those 43 books as 1 star, 8 as 2 stars, 11 as 3 stars, 17 as 4 stars, and the following 6 as 5 stars.

I guess that means these have been my favourite books this year, in no particular order. In no particular order because I have the worst memory and forget every book I read just as quickly as I've picked it up. I've added a link to the summary of each book if you're interested!

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Travels by Michael Crichton

(I loved reading about his Kilimanjaro adventure in one of the chapters.)

The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Liza Marklund

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

If you forced me to choose my favourite, this would be it.

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

I have absolutely no recollection of this book, but I guess it was good!

I, Alex Cross by James Patterson

I love you Alex Cross! I love you Sampson!

Can I just say thank goodness James Patterson is writing good books again! He had seriously been going downhill, but as you can see, I have two of his books on my favourites list this year. If you like murder and suspense as much as I do, you've gotta try his Alex Cross series out :)

Also, if you're wondering, I am the library's number one customer (customer because I know how to rack up those late fines). I rarely buy books and only ask for my favourites as gifts. My husband who never reads owns more books than I do.

Do you have any good books to recommend? I currently have only 245 on my to-read list, a few more couldn't hurt!

My Wishlist

Tis the season to start thinking about my birthday (and Christmas) wish list! Using wishpot.com has been oh so helpful because if I see something while browsing the internet I can add it to my wish list right away before I forget all about it. Then when people ask me what I want, I can easily send them a link to my list!

Here's what I am wishin' and hopin' for this year!

1) Yogitoes skidless yoga towel (in pink for breast cancer awareness). Pair this with a gift certificate for CorePower yoga and I'd be one happy camper.

2) A necklush from etsy. I promise to wear clothes with mine.

3) A kitchen apron from etsy. Either this one or this one, I can't decide.

4) KitchenAid ice cream attachment.

5) Sound of Music blu-ray. Don't laugh. I love me some Julie Andrews.

Have you thought about your wish list yet? Or are you trying to finish off your Halloween candy first?!

Geocaching Adventure

Have you ever heard of geocaching? It's one of my favourite outdoorsy things to do! Here's a quick summary from the geocaching.com website:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

Basically, you search online for caches near you, input them into your gps, then go try to find them. It can be a very frustrating hunt, depending on the difficulty level of the cache and how many people, aka "muggles" are around. You have to be quite stealthy because you don't want just any joe blow on the street to find the cache and destroy it.

A few weekends ago M, the Bamster, and I went out geocaching around our neighbourhood. One cache in particular was pretty cool because it was near the junkyard.

This whole globe is made of old dinky cars!

Here is the magnetic box we found, hidden inside a pole.

Inside is a log where you can write your name and date, and little objects that you can take if you leave something in return.

Anyway, it's a totally nerdy pastime, but I look at it as a good way to get outside for a walk!

Bama loves geocaching too.

Halloween, Chicago Style

Chicago knows how to do Halloween up right, that is for sure! The streets on Saturday night were full of crazy people in crazy costumes.

I enjoy most Halloweeny things - decorations, scary movies, pumpkin carving, but I HATE, no, I DETEST dressing up. I procrastinate every year and end up with some shite half assed costume. I lack creativity. I personally think Halloween was created for skanky girls so they have an excuse to dress up even more skankily than usual.

This year M and I decided to dress up as Wayne and Garth - nice, easy, homemade costume. Just my style. The only pictures we have are from a random cupcake shop stop where we had a dance party with Chewbacca. They pretty much sum up the night.

Good times :)

I don't know about you, but I am so ready to put my Christmas tree up! Bwahahahahah.