Traveling again

I'll be off to Ohio on Monday for two weeks, and I'm actually kind of glad to get traveling again. Two weeks in the suburbs is definitely enough for me. I'll update after the 7 (hopefully) hour drive to Canton when I get there. When I asked Ryan, who went to Oberlin, what there is to do in Ohio, he said "Get out of Ohio". Rachael had some better answers listed below. We'll see what I can get done.


Rachael's Ohio Advice:

I'm not real familiar with the Canton area, but when you are in N.O. (aka Cleveland), maybe check out the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. Little Italy is a cool area of town with some good food and art galleries. Coventry is the college kids area but has some good bars and restaurants. (Tommy's has good food.) You also might be able to find some cool bars in Lakewood. Oh, if you're into food, check out Westside Market. It's pretty cool. (Rachel Ray went there during her "$40 a day" show in Cleveland.)

Cleveland has this East-West rivalry. You'll be on the West side, which is considered the ritzier area. If you drive around the areas around Lakewood, Little Italy and Shaker Heights, you can find some crazy mansions. One of the houses on the lake belongs to Drew Carey (I couldn't tell you which one but my uncle drove me by it) and Patricia Heaton from "Everyone Loves Raymond" lives in Bay Village (where my aunt lives) which is right next to N.O. My aunt has seen her driving around before, so keep your eyes peeled haha. Downtown kind of divides the two sides of town... I'd avoid being directly downtown at night. I think it's scary.

Um the Browns will be playing but they suck, right? I don't know for sure because I don't pay attention. There's a lot of colleges in the area, so if you wanted to see a concert or something, it wouldn't be too difficult I'm sure. Ummm.... Cedar Point is about an hour drive but it's probably too cold for roller coasters and I'm not sure what your time is like. Of course, Lake Erie is there.

Thanks Rachael!

Just hoping the snow stays away. But at least I have a new car to get me there!

Orland Park, IL

The rest of the stay in Philly was uneventful, besides our plane getting delayed 4.5 hours before we finally got back to Chicago. Such is life.

This week I'm working in Orland Park, yay! It's nice to live at my house in Tinley again for a bit and not in a hotel. It's also nice to drive around the city and actually know where I'm going. So, there won't be many interesting updates this week or next, but if you're in the burbs, let me know!

Philly Update

Saw the Rocky steps (at the Philadelphia Art Museum where Rocky runs up in the movie), saw some scary ghetto area, and ate a Cheesesteak. Definitely beginning to get the Philly experience.

Update #2...

Saw the Liberty Bell and some other historic stuff such as the USA's 2nd Bank and Independence Hall, and ate an official cheesesteak (aka one wit' whiz, no onions) at Pat's King of Steaks. Good stuff. It's fun being a tourist in the US.

P.S. I'm going to try and get a lot better with taking and adding photos to spice this blog up a bit.

Boulder to Philly

Goodbye Boulder, it was definitely a fun week of promoting and partying. It was damn cold and we couldn't wear jackets all week, but that was probably the only negative. It was great getting to know the whole team and work together to bring back Boulder. The Best Western Golden Buff or wherever we were was decent, the deluxe rooms are nice, but definitely not the classiest place in the world. Harpo's bar was a good sports bar, and the Applebees across the street had the worst service ever. Pearl Street definitely seemed like a cool place to party at night, even though all the electricity went off on half the block when we went.

I'm currently in Philly, staying at a Four Points Sheraton in the northeast part of the city by Bensalem. For a 2.5 star hotel, it's pretty awesome. Sure, the location isn't very convenient, but super nice rooms, in door pool, hot tub, work out room with more than a treadmill, free wireless internet, mini fridge and microwave, flat screen tv, bar and restaurant downstairs with room service, and a huge comfy bed. What more could you want (besides a good cheesesteak which I am determined to get this week).

US Airways charges $15 for checking one bag and all drinks on board, including water, are at least $2. The flight was ok, but talk about cheap. Glad we're flying Southwest on the way home.

Boulder, Colorado...Election Day

Few quick things:

The University of Colorado campus in Boulder is really pretty. It's in the foothills of the Rockies and the mountains surrounding it are so picturesque that it looks like a postcard. The rest of Boulder is a very typical college town.

I voted absentee and have been working all day, so I haven't really been keeping up with election day. We were supposed to be sampling at polling places, but there was almost no one at them, and it was really depressing to think no one was voting. It seems that early voting was a great success and got rid of a lot of the huge lines on election day.

I just got back from some drinks at Applebee's and turned on the tv just as McCain was doing his speech. Obama will be speaking in 20 minutes to accept the presidency. It's really strange to just turn on the tv and have them announce a new president. I saw tons of people (mostly some crazy 12-15 year old kids who should have been in school) screaming about voting and supporting candidates, but I feel like I missed the anticipation of the race. Has there been much of a race at all, or has it been decided for awhile now? I wonder when it seemed to be decided already.

On a different note...

Time changes are a bitch. I've gone from EST, to CST, to daylight savings, to Mountain time, all within four days. I've also gone from the Atlantic Ocean and beaches, to corn fields, to mile high Rocky Mountains, all within four days. Very strange.