Well back to the rant of the 30 day week. Joy and rapture beyond all imagining are yours. Wish they were mine. Update on my life as of late, besides hating it of course...

I went to a spiffy little bar called the Bandersnatch with my husband for a phoenix linux users group meeting. It was neat. They gave us bowls of soup when we ordered cups and apparently it's kinda hard to order nice fruity alcoholic drinks there. So sue me for not knowing drink names...but I thought they could manage okay. First one was something like a Woowee...or weewoo...or something...the second one she called, and I kid you not, A F*cking Drink. So any phoenix residents, go to the bandersnatch for me and order one. Make me proud.

On another note...I applied to ASU. Since I turned 22 (oh yeah, I turned 22, happy birthday me.) I no longer have to submit some stuff and also I SHOULD now be a resident. Should. Anyway, they have this thing where you can "check your application status five days after you submit" Well, fine and dandy. So I try to get in, and they say that the ID I need will be on my "admissions certificate". YO! HELL-OoooOOO! If I have a STUPID admissions certificate, WHY AM I CHECKING MY APPLICATION STATUS! Now, okays, granted it may come in some stupid confirmation letter (letter? Why not email? WHY NOT UPON SUBMISSION?) But still, the wording there was funky.

Now...about Chi-ca-go!

So...uhm...we're on like day two because I SLEPT through day one...we paid $14 stupid dollars a person to ride an elevator. Yes, that's right, we went to the Sear's Tower...yay for us. We got some souvenirs and a bus card...

The buses in Chicago SUCK compared to the buses in Phoenix. They go "in 15 minute intervals" in big time blocks...which gets weird when you get passed by FOUR of the same line. At once, literally passing each other. Obviously something is messed up.

So...ratings of Chicago Attractions:

Field Museum: Cost: Nothing when we went! Whoop!
A nice big museum, we came too late in the day to really get a look at the whole thing. It's HUGE! I mean the flyer says it's IMMENSE but...wow they mean it. And we spent like 3 or 4 hours there...of course I love ancient civilization stuff and there's lots of that there. Bonus points go to the gift shop which sold "Body Chocolate" I am SO not kidding. Body chocolate...and I don't mean shaped like bodies...I mean the stuff you usually don't see outside of fredericks of hollywood or worse. I mean...wow. So we bought some. It doesn't really paint on all that nice thou...uh...hmm...too much info? Yeah...next stop!

Chinatown: Cost: Nothing.
Kinda a disappointment as where we went for food was really kinda bland but, whatever. And it was so cold I was starting to get ill. This time we rode the train, which was fun. We wandered around shops most of the day. Never did buy anything though...big bummer. But fun anyway.

Shedd Aquarium: Cost: Too much : P
This was by far the most frustrating thing to get to...we waited and waited for a bus that was supposed to come in "15 minute intervals" finally decided to try taking ANOTHER bus partway....well another bus happened to be an express that took us about fifteen minutes on the freeway in the most uncomfortable area of the bus away from the aquarium. Did I mention that before we were within sorta walking distance of the aquarium? Well now we're NOT. So...we wait another whatever freakin' interval for the bus to come back in the other direction...and drive another 15 minutes...to get STILL not right by the aquarium but oh...maybe 5 blocks closer than we were before. Whatever. Oh and we were accosted by some guy selling postcards for $3 a piece outside the door. And my husband actually made eye contact so we bought one. Geez, he warns me about being careful...well...he's cute what can I do : ) So we got there kinda late and bought the half ticket so we didn't see the whales and dolphins. I always think whales and dolphins look kinda sad at aquariums anyway...all scratched up and bored. I like the tropical fish better. So once I got over that whole little "adventure" I had lots of fun. We got a smushed penny.

Art Institute: Cost: "Suggested Donation" that they don't even ask if you'd like to suggest less....dorks.
Bonus points: husband bought me a cute little unicorn doll for my collection :) One thing I have to say, Why are pictures of people posing art? I mean drawing naked people takes SOME skill but photographing them? POSED? That's not usually called art where I'm from. Now I don't think NO photography is art...nature photography is really cool. Those guys have some skill and guts. But eh, photographs are dumb. So we mostly looked at the ancient art that would have just as well fit into the Field Museum. But it was cool, they had a big collection of japanese and chinese stuff. It was spiffy. Got there too late again though and didn't get to see everything again. Oh and they had minuature rooms, now THOSE were neat.

Food!
We ate at some really neat places while we were in chicago. In fact I think we ate more than we did anything else. Besides walk, we walked a lot. BECAUSE THE STUPID BUSES DON'T STUPID RUN! Uhm..yeah...food.
Pizza was a big thing we ate lots of. We had thin crust pizza once and stuffed pizza twice. Stuffed pizza is awesome, let me tell you, very cheesy, very nice. Unfortunately my beloved will probably never ever want it again because it made him sick. Ah well, I don't think there's a place in Phoenix that sells it anyway. Also he has guilt because a homeless guy asked for our leftovers and I didn't understand and he didn't want to give them away without asking me so we kept them and didn't use them. : (

Rainforest Cafe' heh, okay it's a chain, but it was the first time my husband had been to one so we thought we'd give it a try. I tried to order a nice fruit tropical drink with alcohol and got carded. Only time I get carded ever it has to be out of state you know? So we show them my ID which is not only SIDEWAYS but expires in like 40 years. So our waiter has to take my ID and show it to the entire staff of the restaurant because it's SIDEWAYS and expires in like 40 years. Freaks. We got a smushed penny there too.

Errata
Vong's Thai Kitchen was a fun place to eat, they had $1 miniature desserts. Lord almighty ONE DOLLAR MINIATURE DESSERTS! For lunch. That was so awesome. Just a few nice bites to take the burn off from the spicy peanut chicken I got. Well, it was "mild" but it still had some bite to me, I'm a wimp :\ We had passionfruit souffle and ginger creme brulee. Both of which I ended up eating most of because a certain someone thought "creme" would mean "crumb" instead of "cream" which is custard. Poor sparky. and we also ate at some other place... that had a nice lunch menu where we split an order of tasty chicken except they had a freaky menu where it was hard to read the prices. And I also the whole trip was having problems getting all the ice in my water glass. So I was drinking my water fast because my glass is mostly ice and getting into a horrible chain of events, though at Vong's they actually gave me a new glass once mine got too icey. Hooray for them! Go to chicago and eat there.

And this is getting long so I'll talk about the trip home and that's it next time. See you later.

*That title is funnier if you say it with a spanish U meaning it'd be a "boose". Meaning it'd all rhyme? Oh why do I waste my time....

Freaks.