T is for Totally Awesome Tuesday

Ever have one of those days where everything just goes right? Tuesday was mine.

I had a feeling the day would go well, as I got to sleep in an extra hour and finally was able to end my pontytail-wearing streak because I was having a Good Hair Day. I was scheduled to spend the day at the office in the suburbs and was looking forward to the change in scenery and pace.

If I had a theme song, or if this were a movie, now would be the time to insert cheesy music in the background.

I bounced to the train, picking up a copy of the RedEye as usual, but this time when I opened to Page 2, I was on it (two of my comments were used in the Blah Blah Bloggers feature). On my way to the Metra, some girl handed me two Fiber One bars--my favorite chocolate chip ones--as part of a street promotion. I hadn't packed a lunch, so this would be a good snack to tidy me over (turns out I didn't need it... they took me out to lunch).

I decided that because it had already been such a pleasant morning, an iced coffee would only make it better. But at Dunkin' Donuts (Massachusetts girl here!), they got my order wrong--they gave me a large instead of the medium I paid for. They didn't care and told me to keep it. Score.

I spent the work day touring beautiful gardens and sipping on mint-infused lemonade (don't worry, I did some actual work). I got home with just enough time to freshen up before meeting my friend Ally for the ChicagoNow first birthday party that night (the RedEye Wrigleyville blog I write for is part of this 300+ blog network).

The party included free appetizers and Goose Island beer. Ally and I sipped on Green Line and 312 while chatting with several of our fellow bloggers (she blogged about her adventures in Vancouver when she was there working the Olympics), but spent extra time chatting with one in particular: Ed Swiderski.

Yes, that Ed. The one Jillian chose on her season of "The Bachelorette."

I never watched his season and had no idea he had a ChicagoNow blog (he writes a technology blog called EdorAlive). We talked for a while about work, blogs, and of course, the Bachelor. He was very charismatic, down-to-earth and friendly (I can understand why he was the last man standing). He told us about his new education foundation GEOTF and invited us to a fundraiser he was having for it Thursday night (but sadly, I already had plans).

I left the party with a little pep in my step thinking of the fabulous day and great night I just had. Cue cheesy music again and roll credits. Tuesday was definitely my day.

The Korean BBQ Experience

On Sunday, my roommates and I had dinner at a Korean Barbecue restaurant. Korean BBQ is kind of like Japanese -hibachi-grill-meets-Melting-Pot because you cook your own food on a grill at the table.

The table is in a sectioned off area and there is a space for the grill in the middle of the tabletop, which they bring out lit and shortly after you sit down. As soon as you order the meat you want, they bring out 25 side dishes, rice, lettuce and the raw meat. As you cook your meat, you nosh on the little side dishes, if you dare to try them--most of the time we had no idea what we were eating, but Laura did warn us of the fish cakes and the little fish heads. I thought a few of them were kind of tasty and do not care to know what I ingested just in case I don't like the answer!

The experience was fun, but if I'm going to spend that much money on dinner, I want it cooked for me. It was hard to socialize and pick at the sides and keep an eye on the meat all at once--the thin slices would cook pretty quickly on the hot grill and stick to the grates if you didn't pay close attention. As we cooked more and more meat, the smoke kept building up and soaking into out clothes.

The Korean-style beef wrapped up with rice in a lettuce leaf was pretty tasty and the trip was definitely worth the new experience. Next time, I'll leave the grilling to someone else.

Year Two Begins

Last Friday, I celebrated my one year anniversary living in Chicago. It's been an interesting and challenging year, but also one of the best of my life. I've met so many great people here and have had so many amazing experiences, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't made this move.

I've learned many lessons, the most important being that I proved to myself that I can live on my own, away from my tight-knit support system of family and friends back home. However, I could have never made it through these last 365 days without all of you--friends and family both old and new, or should I say East Coast and Midwest. To those of you who helped calm me down when I was bawling my eyes out on the phone, begging to come home... thank you a million times. You know who you are. I love you all. Thank you for supporting me so far in this journey.

After celebrating this milestone--which I joked is the longest relationship I've had in a long time-with some drinks on Friday, it was time to kick off my second year in the Second City with a bang. Or a rooftop pool.

On Saturday, my roommate Elli had a couple guest passes to her gym and took Laura and me along with her to the rooftop pool. This gym is known as a very fancy and expensive gym so I knew the rooftop pool would be gorgeous. It kind of reminded me of my time in Puerto Rico, with the pretty flowering plants and poolside bar and grill. Needless to say, it was very relaxing.

This was a great way to spend the afternoon and an even better way to kick off Year Two. As I lay back on the lounge chair and looked at the scene around me, a smile crept across my face. The sun was shining and I had a spectacular view of the Chicago skyline. After a summer filled with homesickness, I was reminded of how much I love this city and what a great life I have here when I'm not sulking and pining for home.

I've had a great time this last year, and can't wait to see what the next one will bring. Hopefully a lot less crying, a lot more smiling and a few more visits to that rooftop pool.

Flying High and Having Fun

This past weekend, I joined my friend Ally and her roommate to watch the 52nd Annual Air and Water Show at North Ave Beach. The show is the largest free one of its kind in the U.S. and something I was excited to experience.

We got to the vicinity of the beach around 11 a.m., just in time to see Vince Vaughn parachute from the skies (he performed a tandem jump with the U.S. Army Golden Knights). Once we got to the actual lake, we managed to find a patch of sand to call home for the day and unloaded our supplies. We brought all the necessities to last the near six hours we would be there, including chicken drumsticks and wings, vodka-soaked watermelon and “rummy” bears. You know, the important stuff.

We lounged back and watched as planes performed loop-de-loop tricks with their loud engines, leaving smoke patterns in their wake; Army and Navy aircrafts putting on shows that demonstrated how fast their planes could go and shamelessly plugging recruitment. It was the scary but exhilarating to watch the planes free-fall from the sky. There was even a helicopter that performed loops and dives and falls!

While there were many great highlights of the day (not including the sunburn I got despite lathering 55 SPF sunscreen on my pale Irish skin), here are a couple of the best people watching (and listening) moments:

• You’d think there were only about three songs ever written about flying. “Learn to Fly” (Foo Fighters), “My Hero” (Foo Fighters) and “Danger Zone” (Kenny Loggins) were played on repeat, and if I never heard these songs until the next Air and Water Show, I would be perfectly okay. Now, if they had played Kenny’s "Hangin’ With the Boys," seeing we were on a beach with volleyball nets, that would have been awesome.


• Friendly competition between military organizations. Some of the men narrating the demonstrations had quite the sense of humor, especially the Navy. At the end of the Navy’s flight demonstration, the narrator closed with this: “And remember: real pilots land planes on boats.” What made it even funnier was that it preceded a demonstration by the Army.


• We had our own personal—and very enthusiastic— commentator who stood behind us for the last few hours yelling things like: “Here they come!”and “What a beautiful aircraft!” We figured he was some sort of an idiot savant (not in a mean way), because he seemed to know a lot about the planes before the announcer even described them to the audience.

I managed to take a few videos with my camera and uploaded them to my YouTube account. There are four videos in total: one of the Blue Angels, one of a Navy Seal parachuting from the sky while holding an American Flag, one with four planes doing tricks and one with a single plane performing tricks. Click here to view them.

F-Bombs and Yankee Haters? Yup, I've Found Red Sox Oasis

Last Saturday, Corey, Jamie and I attended a Red Sox Meet Up to watch the Sox/Yankees game. To our pleasure, it felt like we had been transported back to Boston for the afternoon. When the Yankees started tacking on runs, the F-bombs and crashing of silverware and plates started to increase.

We couldn’t help but look at each other and smile. We were home.

While this over-zealous reaction to the game might have been annoying last year at this time, it was a welcome breath of fresh air as I sat in a bar outside Wrigleyville. For once, I wasn’t forced to watch any Cubs games or pretend the root for the White Sox. When Adrian Beltre hit a homerun, we all cheered and clapped like it was a walk-off dinger and didn’t have to look over our shoulders to make sure it was okay to do so.

For an afternoon it was acceptable to wear my Red Sox hat and I got to hang out with people who hate the Yankees as much as I do. When I moved here, I hoped to find a community like this, the place where those people I see on the El and walking down the street with their Boston ball caps go to talk Sox.

A couple months ago one of my friends told me about MeetUp.com, where there are interest groups for pretty much everything in pretty much every location. It didn’t take long to find the Red Sox group. It took me longer to actually make one of the Meet Ups.

Last week, I got an email inviting me to the Patriots Meet-Up group. I quickly responded and RSVP’ed to the September 12 Meet Up to watch the Pats open the season. I hope this group is just as homey, filled with just as many J-E-T-S haters and Squish the Fish fans as the other Boston group.

When I’m around those people who also feel the urge to vomit when a Peyton Manning commercial comes on the TV and who love Tom Brady despite his bad hairstyle choices, then I know I’m really home. Or at least the next best thing.

(Optimus) Prime Location

This is what happened to me on my way to work this morning when I ran into the Transformers 3 set...

Kidding... but that background is an actual shot of the set I took one day. My dad said he wanted a picture of me and Optimus Prime together, so this is what I came up with (I love Photoshop!). A little humor to start the day! :)

Boston English

When I first moved to Chicago, I knew there would be some adjustments. East Coast girl meets Midwest lifestyle-- it just sounds like a match made in Comedy Central heaven. At first I noticed that everyone was a lot nicer, not necessarily always in a rush and said pop when referring to soda. I also had the opportunity to order tater tots with every meal.

However, as I immersed myself deeper in the Midwest culture, I got a little more homesick and a lot prouder of where I’m from (never thought I'd say "I grew up in Worcester, MA" with so much love). It’s also one of the reasons I love my internship so much.

What does that have to do with anything, you may be thinking. Settle down you impatient Massholes (sorry Mom)! For the last two months I have been working around people who have grown up in or around the Chicagoland area and study me like a science experiment when I say a word they don’t recognize.

For example: on my third day, we had a meeting with HR to fill out paperwork. As we entered the office, I realized that I had left my passport on my bureau, and kept apologizing for doing so. It was all well and good, except the three people I was with (my boss, co-intern and HR representative) had no idea what I was talking about. I guess they didn't want to be rude and ask, but eventually had to in order to understand why I didn’t have the proper identification. I explained that my bureau was a dresser, you know, the place where you put clothes in draws (they made fun of that one, too).

Their wide eyes filled with laughter. Then they wanted to know more.

I went down the list: jimmies, frappe, bubbler…pause for 15 minutes as we die of laughter from the word bubbler. At this point, my boss (or “colleague” as she likes to be called) is pulling in opinions from other people in the office just to make sure she isn’t the only one unaware of these words.

Not a day goes by when she doesn’t ask me to say “very berry,” which I apparently pronounce in a funny way.

Yesterday, we were talking about bowling and I asked if there was candlepin bowling here or if it was just big balls.

Crickets.

I look up and my co-intern and boss are staring at me with disbelieving, confused eyes. I think they were initially entertained by my use of the phrase “big balls” but had absolutely no idea what candlepin was until I proved I indeed did not make it up (Wikipedia has had my back on several occasions, like frappe and bubbler).

I secretly love the attention I get for saying these different words and like even more that it makes me different from everyone else. Here, I am a unique individual who says “very berry” and drinks from a bubbler.

Although I never like to be the butt of a joke, I love when they tease me for my East Coast talk. I also know they secretly love the entertainment, too. Last week at work, the interns had to deliver presentations to the President/CEO and other staff. My boss told me I should mention some of the funny words and write them all down on a separate slide at the end of the PowerPoint presentation. I did, and it was a hit, eliciting a few laughs from the room.

I called that slide (shown above) “Boston English,” because, well, that’s what Wikipedia calls it. No really, it exists.

In order to prevent myself from picking up the hard ‘o’ sound Chicagoans make when they speak, I make it a point to say “wicked” as much as I can and embrace my “Boston English” vocabulary on a daily basis. I may or may not even experiment with dropping an ‘r’ or two once in a while, just for fun. I can’t lose my Eastern edge. I’m from Worcester, after all.

Una Bella Notte

My friend Bernie and I went to the Italian Festival in the Little Italy neighborhood last weekend. I had been waiting for the chance to celebrate my Italian heritage—and most importantly my love for Italian food—since I moved here.

After attending several festivals honoring other cultures like German and Chinese, I was ready to indulge in some carbohydrates courtesy of Italy. We walked around the festival grounds, browsing the options before narrowing down our choices to toasted ravioli, mini meatball sandwiches/sliders and for the main course, stuffed eggplant (which was unbelievable). We topped it off with handmade cannolis.

In addition to the elaborate food, there were three stages of entertainment, including a man singing on the Piazza DiMaggio. The Piazza is a beautiful plaza with fountains and a statue of Yankee (and Italian-American) legend Joe DiMaggio, dedicated to the Italian-American immigrants who flocked to the Taylor Street neighborhood—“Little Italy”—in the early 1900’s. It is located across from the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.

There were also several extreme Jersey Shore inspired guidos and guidettes crawling around. The vendors were not only stocked with Italian soccer gear (despite the Azzurri’s poor showing in the World Cup), but they also had shirts that said “Jersey Shore Guidette” and “Jersey Shore Fist Pump Team” written in the symbolic red-green-white colors. I chose this as the low point of the festival and would have lost my appetite had I not already stuffed my face—and stomach—with delicious food.

There was even a game area at the festival, but I decided to eat my money’s worth rather than risk it on the chance I might win an inflatable hammer or stuffed teddy bear. Oh yeah, and there was a Bocce court.

I even met a new friend… this Roman soldier. I honestly think he dressed up for fun and not because he had to as part of the festivities. Hey, his get-up sure beats a blow out, gold-plated jewelry and a fake spray tan!

Smoke and Mirrors

I can officially cross "fancy nightclub" and "fake celebrity encounter" off my Chicago bucket list.

Last Saturday night, my roommate Laura and I attended my friend’s birthday party at one of those fancy clubs often mentioned in Monday’s gossip columns when recapping the weekend’s star sightings. I’m not a club kind of girl, so I found it amusing—and myself a little out of my element—when I saw a red carpet rolled out for us to walk on as we entered the building. However, we were allowed in only after waiting an ample amount of time of course, simply to remind us we weren’t at your every day establishment (there was no other reason fro the wait as the place was nowhere near filled when we got inside). Luckily, I didn’t have to pay the $20 entrance fee because we were in our group and they waived the cover for “the ladies.”

The best part of the waiting-in-line experience was when the group of scantily dressed girls in front of us decided they had “like been waiting for like ever” and it was “like so stupid” and they started to walk away. I bet Laura the bouncers would try to stop them because they had sky-high heels and hem lines, and ever lower cut tops. As soon as the doorman noticed the mass exodus of skanks, he ran after them. I watched as he then lead them through the VIP entrance without collecting a cover charge from any of them.

I literally laughed out loud. While I have never been to L.A., I can imagine that this is what it might look like on your average Saturday night. Except the girls would never have left the line nor have been chased, as there would have been a queue of appropriately dressed females behind them.

After we made it past the Ivory Tower of bodyguards with tight black shirts and pretentious earpieces (I wonder if they even work), the inside wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before in a club with much less red tape.

While I would have preferred to spend my night sipping on a $5 beer while sitting on sticky bar stool, it’s not every day one gets beyond the velvet ropes of club heaven (rolls eyes) and I don’t get to hang out with this friend very often, so I was happy to be there. Even if it meant nursing an overpriced vodka and diet. I knew this would happen, so I planned—err, drank—ahead of time to accommodate my student budget.

Within an hour or so of being there, I started talking with a guy and we bonded over our dislike for this particular club and the obnoxious house music bumping in the basement level where we were hanging out. Eventually, he asked if Laura and I wanted to meet his friends. We agreed, as it would hopefully rescue us from the present situation. We followed him up to a VIP room where a group of guys were enjoying bottle service.

As we made our way through the introductions, one of the friends introduced another friend as “this is my boy, he plays for the Chicago Bears, he’s ____” (the identity of this Bears defenseman will remain nameless as to protect the innocent).

I looked at him and said “You are not ____.”

They all chimed in and tried to valiantly convince me—to no avail—that this was indeed ____. This guy looked a lot like ____ , only a lot smaller, and had I not known any better (which I’m assuming they pegged me as a girl who didn’t), I probably would have believed them. Never one to be caught as the butt of any joke, I held fast to my belief that this was not ____.

I asked to see his I.D., agreeing to believe him once I did.

“I don’t need one of those,” he said.

“Then how did you get into this club?” I asked.

“Man, you talk too much,” he said.

He then proceeded to ask me and Laura to leave their little VIP area. We did so with pleasure as we both got a free Grey Goose and cranberry out of it. He was probably mad I didn’t fall for his game. And now I have a story I can tell over and over again.

Once we were returned to the subterranean, I caught up with the guy who brought us to his friends’ VIP party in the first place. He asked why we left and I told him what happened. He felt bad for his rude friend (he later said he was more of an acquaintance than a friend), laughed once I did (assuring him I though the story was funny) and proceeded to tell me that the guy pretending to be one of Chicago’s favorite Bears players was a cop who got made fun of a lot in high school.

The sad part of the story is that I’m sure a lot of girls fall for that guy’s story: a man who looks a lot like ____, surrounded by bottle service in a VIP section of a popular celebrity hangout. However, once again my sports knowledge saved me and prevented me from falling victim to a celebrity look-a-like. Although looking back I wish I had played it better in order to get a second free drink out of it!

Seven Things I Miss About Summer

Everyone says that there is no place like Chicago in the summertime. Strangely, I've found myself the most homesick during these warmer months.

In order to make it through my tough spinning class this past weekend, I closed my eyes and pretended I was biking along the coast of Maine. Then it got me thinking: what else do I miss about the East Coast summer?

1. Walking along the Maine beaches, the sand sinking beneath your feet as the surf crashes against your ankles, immersing them in the cold, salty Atlantic water. You can wade through Lake Michigan, but you better check the water alerts for E.coli first.

2. Ice cream adventures to Scoop Deck and Meola's. Here, I can walk a couple blocks to Baskin Robbins, or over a mile to the closest-and pretty much only--homemade ice cream joint in the area. We have plenty of cupcakes but the homemade ice cream options are limited.

3. Worcester Tornadoes baseball games. Nothing beats a summer night baseball game, especially when it comes with cheap tickets, beer and fried dough. Though it's independent baseball, it tops the over-priced, underachieving Cubs.

4. Though Chicago has street festivals like Burgerfest and Ribfest, there's nothing quite like a family cookout--planned or impromptu. A hand-packed burger cooked to perfection by Dad on the grill paired with tasty macaroni salad whipped up by Mom in the kitchen is my favorite summer meal. I like my burgers with a side of chips, not a bump from behind by a sweaty festival-goer.

5. The smell of a campfire rather than the blaring sound of fire engine sirens.

6. Boston Beer Works blueberry and watermelon beer. Chicago brewed 312 doesn't quite compare to a Sam Summer from the tap and a fresh lemon wedge.

7. Mini golf outings. Haven't found the places or the competition/friends to experience this in Chicago yet.

The ocean and the lake are both blue, but they couldn't be more different to me. I guess I'll always be an East Coast girl at heart, especially when it comes to summer fun. A month from today I'll be back, but my mind is already there. When it comes to summer, there's just no place like home.