Prangster in Chicago

What to do, what to do

Right now, it's 1:34am on a very early Monday morning and I'm thinking of resuming my post as mayor of a city called "Happy Birthday" in Sim City 4. I'll have to get up for work in a little over 7 hours, but nevermind that. My city needs me. And it needs more residential and industrial zones. And it needs a highschool badly. And it needs money to do these things. I'll probably raise the taxes some more. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Okay, bye.

Chatting with Mum

Spring...

...my ass.

So Thursday was the official start of spring. On Friday, it snowed up to seven inches. Earlier in the week, I woke up with a sore throat. Yesterday, it turned into a cold. It's meant to be spring. SPRING. But this is the first time I've been sick since I moved to Chicago, so maybe I should be thanking my immune system. It's been good to me.

Right now it's two degrees celcius outside. I made the rounds of my neighborhood this afternoon, and the air outside is so crisp. I love it.

Okay, nap time.

(I just woke up, went to The Onion, and read this. Sad.)

Friday night at Blick's Art Store

There are small signs throughout this art supplies store to deter shoplifters. One of them reads: "You should meet the person who's watching you."

We wander around, testing expensive felt pens. I do something annoying from my repertoire of annoying somethings.

KB: Don't make me punch you!

(KB punches me.)

KC: Uh, the person who's watching me just saw you do that.


Earlier that night, we ate at a newly opened woodfire pizza place called Union Pizzeria on Chicago Ave in Evanston. The pizzas there were really good and the prices weren't insane. Plus they had a great little collection of hot and cold antipasti dishes. The wait for a table was 30 minutes though. There were a lot of older couples, older people in general and even families with kids. (Woah, ageism.) There was a beer on the menu called the PranQster, so we had to try it. I would have taken a photo of the bottle, except I got all shy about pulling out my camera. Sitting so close to the table next to us, I wasn't in the mood to be that person who takes photos inside the restaurant.

Boston seafood: prepare to drool like you've never drooled before

The city of low taxes

Just to be out of sequence, this is actually Boston's skyline from my plane right before I flew out of Boston to Chicago via New York. Pretty huh?


This was our cool hotel, the Liberty Hotel, which was a jail until 1990. The place was seriously cool. So cool in fact that as we were walking home on Saturday night after our amazing seafood dinner at Summer Shack, and wondering where all the Bostonians were at, we approached our hotel and saw a line of people waiting outside behind a velvet rope to get into the club on the ground floor. Then we caught the escalator up to the lobby, turned around and saw even more people in the lobby bar. The place was so cool we had to drag ourselves down there at 11pm and take a look-see (and drink two glasses of red wine between us for $30!) because we're 26 and that's not old.


Mmm, yes. We went to Cambridge on Sunday morning and saw cute buildings and serious looking smart buildings.



Photos of seafood next post! I don't want to scare away my vegetarian/vegan readership.

I went to Boston this weekend

Best things about Boston:

- Sleeping on a really luxurious bed covered with massive pillows.
- Hanging out with Jess.
- Staying in this cool hotel (Liberty Hotel) which used to be a jail until 1990.
- Having our entire 3-day itinerary revolve around restaurant reservations we'd made here (Summer Shack) and here (Haru Sushi).
- We also ate here (Legal Seafoods) because my dad told us to.
- The 'Tower of Power' -- photo to come!
- No sales tax for clothing purchases under $175.
- 5% sales tax for clothing purchases over $175 (FYI: in Chicago, sales tax is 10.25%, the highest in America...ARRRR!!!!)
- The previous two points combined with this one: Filene's Basement (a discount department store) in Boston is awesome.
- The Lindt chocolate store which we went into twice.
- Snacking on truffle chocolates the entire day as we walked around.

Best things about coming home:

- No more traveling. It took me 9 hours to get from home to the hotel in Boston (I missed my connecting flight) then today it took 7 hours to get back home.
- I got a postcard in the mail!
- My magazine subscription came too.
- Also I got a cheque from FlexSystem, which does something with my pre-tax income that I don't understand...and lets me buy monthly train passes for less. Or something.

Anyway, I had a great time in Boston. It was so good to spend time with Jess and just hang out, relax, take naps, and talk whatever. I'll try to get some photos up tomorrow...

Where I am right now