So thankful for my bug alarm.

so the other night I was sleeping, but I must not have been in a deep sleep because when Lina jumped off of my leg and meowed I woke up.  By the sound of her meow I knew that there was some sort of bug in the room.  It's weird, I know, but she does this weird meow when she sees any kind of bug.  So then I'm freaking out because it's probably a spider.   I looked over at the wall she was looking at and see this thing run across the wall...now it's dark and I don't have my glasses on yet at this point, so this thing has to be big because I'm blind.

So then I get up, get my glasses, and turn on the light and see this giant house centipede running along the wall.  I'm relieved it's not a spider but I still don't want this thing running around the bedroom.  So I'm trying to be quiet so I don't wake up Don and I see my chance and I grabbed my shoe and attempted to kill it.  But it was fast and it moved up the wall and I couldn't reach it.  At this point, I was getting tired and it seemed like this thing was just going to stay on the ceiling so I decided to get in bed.  I'm worried though because what if this centipede comes into the bed?  I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but these things are fast and they are just kinda freaky.  So I bring the covers up to my neck and hope it stays on the ceiling.

Then the heat comes on and with all the covers "protecting" me from the centipede I'm getting freaken hot and uncomfortable.  Then I heard Lina meow and hit the floor with her paws...so now I'm assuming she has caught this thing so I bring the covers down and try to get back to sleep.  I think by now like an hour has passed.  But now I had to pee so I got up and saw that the centipede was back on the ceiling.  I couldn't believe she hadn't caught it by now, but I'm tired of chasing this thing so I get in bed.

I'm almost asleep when Lina jumped on me and meowed......I'm freaken out...where's the centipede?!  She's looking at the wall next to the head of the bed and I can see the centipede coming down!!  It's coming for me.  I grabbed my shoe again and finally killed it.  After about 2 hours of off and on again sleeping and worrying about this house centipede it is dead!

Tonight I was making dinner and heard the bug meow and there's another freaken house centipede in the kitchen.  It's a smaller one like a baby.  Do I have some sort of infestation?!  I  looked this bug up online and it seems they are harmless and they eat a ton of other bugs, including spiders.  Which is good I guess, but I really don't want them in bed with me.

The word of the day is... CRAZY.

So I decided to stop and eat at Mcdonald's today on Clark Street...probably one of the weirdest experiences I've had at a Mcdonald's so far. Picture a scene in a movie where it's supposed to be just a regular event like a party, or a wedding, or an ordinary drive to work or something....but it's just gone completely chaotic. But to make it seem more normal there's calming classical music playing in the scene. There was actually classical music playing loudly at this Mcdonald's...like really...when has that ever been happening?!

When I walked in it was like being in a nursing home...all these crazy old men sitting alone at tables saying random phrases and just sounding crazy. People just dropping stuff. There was a mentally disabled boy screaming "I want mustard, I want mustard..." and just screaming. One of the old men was saying "Someone needs to give that boy a whipping!" Over and over and over. Then another old man kept backing up his motorized wheelchair into people. It was literally a crazy house.

I was going to get my order to go, but after seeing so many crazy people in one building at once, I decided to sit and relax with my meal and take in the blaring classical music and the old man occasionally complaining about the boy that wouldn't stop screaming. Entertainment.

Las Tablas Colombian Steakhouse.

So Don and I decided to eat here tonight and it was great!! It was about a 20 minute walk to the restaurant. We ordered the empanadas for an appetizer. There were 3 kinds: cheese, beef, and chicken. We couldn't eat all of them so we brought some home!! They were very good! I think the cheese one was the best. Out of all the empanadas I've had though I'd probably rate them a 3.5 out of 5 only because the ones with meat didn't really have any taste to them...they needed some spice or something.

We both ordered steak...of course. I got the Entrana Steak (skirt steak) with beans, rice and a sweet plantain. Don got the Bandeja Paisa, which was a Colombian style rib-eye steak with rice, beans, a fried egg and a plantain. He loved his and my steak was great!! So tasty and juicy. We were stuffed.

This place is a little pricey. It was $60 for two of us, but we had an appetizer and one mojito-like drink. But worth it. I really wanna take my dad here because I think he would really like the steak! I would rate it a 4/5, because it was pricey and I didn't think the empanadas were the best. Other than that though....it was great so check it out. So one restaurant down, a lot more to go!

So...hungry? Food Tour Chicago

One of the best things about living in NYC was the variety of different types of restaurants. After growing up in a small town in the Midwest, I hadn't really been exposed to different types of foods. I'm a pretty picky eater but over the past few years I have wanted to try new foods. I met a friend in NYC, Sena, who shared the same desire to discover great restaurants in the city. So once a month we would get together (sometimes we would be nice and invite our boyfriends) and share a restaurant with each other that we found to be amazing. Sometimes we would just try a totally new type of cuisine that neither of us had had before. Now were not experts in food critiquing but we know what tastes good! And we are always on a budget so were not talking about your $50 per plate places. I'm talking about the real places.

So now it's time to do the food tour of Chicago and find the best restaurants. It might take awhile because eating out is expensive, but I've been searching and already have a list of places to go. This time will be without Sena though :( but when she comes to visit I will know the best places!

We have already tried a few pizza places in Chicago...but we haven't tried any NY style yet only Chicago style. I have heard there's some good NY style ones around though. Just down the street from out apartment though I believe Nancy's has the best Chicago style stuffed pizza. I'm just basing that on about 5 different places I've tried throughout the years. Our favorite NY style pizza was in Brooklyn-Pizza Plus.

We have tried 3 different Indian places since moving to Chicago. We had our favorite place in NY, which was Panna II, but I kinda feel like 2 places here have surpassed Panna II...although none of quite captured the atmosphere of Panna hahaha. We found a Little India area in Chicago so that was exciting!! So many awesome little shops and tons and tons of restaurants. It was awesome, I can't wait to go back and try another place there. The best Indian though in Chicago we have had I think has been Raj Darbar Indian Restaurant. We have also ate at Hemas Kitchen and Viceroy of Indian, which are very very close second bests. Raj Darbar and Viceroy both gave us the complimentary sauces and the bread/chips...don't know the name. But Raj's was better. All of the meals at these places have been amazing though. I think Raj wins because the Naan was amazing.

I've tried 2 Greek places so far: Melanthios and Athenian Room. Melanthios was pricier and I think Athenian Room might be better but I wanna go back and I have a few other places to try. At both places I had a Greek Burger.

So Food Tour Chicago...anyone wanna join or have any suggestions let me know!
Thai-Tac Quick
Chinese-Little Three Happiness, Mandarin Kitchen
Japanese-Ginza Japanese Restuarant
Mexican-Las Pinatas, Pancho Pistolas
German/Austrian-Resi's Bierstube Restaurant, Mirabell Restaurant, Chicago Barvarian Food
Filipino-Pampango's Cuisine Filipino, Isla Pilipina Restuarant
African-Vee-Vee's African Restaurant, Zebda
Ethiopian-Ethiopian Diamond Cuisine
Turkish-A La Turka
Egyptian-King Tut
Greek-Santorini, Roditys
Southern Comfort Food-Big Jones, Wishbone Restaurant
Polish-Szatas, Old Warsaw
Cajun- Heaven On Seven, Lagniappe
Colombian- Las Tablas, Sabor A Cafe Colombian Steakhouse

This is gonna take awhile! Can't wait to find some great places and awesome things in the city.

When will this feel like home...

I always hate the feeling in trying to make your new place feel like home. I remember when I moved to Bloomington...I hated it. It never felt like home, then about the time when I was comfortable with it and starting to really enjoy living on my own I decided to move to NYC. It took me about a year to fall in love with NY. At first I hated it...I was scared to drive, I was scared to do anything really. The apartment was so small. The lifestyle was just different. I missed my family and my friends and wanted to move back. Now after being here for about 4 months I feel like I barely know Chicago. I miss ny. It's like some days I just crave it. It makes me wonder what Chicago holds.

It is HOT!

Made it to the Philippines. Getting to the resort was CRAZY. We had to take a plane to an island...then a shuttle bus. I always think of a shuttle bus as a 15-20 min ride...this was a 2 hour ride in a packed bus...I was sitting in the aisle...and it was freaken hot!! Then we had to take a small boat to the island of Boracay.

We're Sending Sewers To Japan!!!

So it's almost midnight here in Tokyo so I think that's like 10 am in Illinois. I have traveled to the future. This hotel is awesome. I'm so exhausted. Spent like 7 hours in JFK then a 12 hour flight. I was kinda happy we missed the flight to the Philippines because I couldn't take anymore airplane for the day.

So first thing I did when I got here was had a free Japanese Buffet. And that has been about the coolest thing I've done so far hahaha and the ride here on the bus from the airport. Pretty cool. Didn't think I'd be staying here but I'm glad for the bed and the rest. I wish I had time to take some pictures.

To The Annoying Person On My Block...

Please learn how to properly use or control your car alarm. Every day this week a certain car alarm has went off during the night. Anywhere from 11:30 pm to 7 am. And last night to be exact 4:31 am and 7:01 am.

I don't really know how this is happening because it sounds like just one of the regular annoying alarms that goes off when you accidentally hit the panic button on your keys. It's just BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. And it's pretty much parked right outside the bedroom window. It's not like a huge truck went by and set off all the alarms on the block, cause that only happens with the touch sensitive ones really. So honestly, really either your car is messed up, you don't know the buttons on your key thing and when you try to lock it you hit the panic and can't turn it off for like 10 beeps cause you're an idiot, or you're sleeping with your car remote and keep rolling over on it and hitting the panic button. ?????

IT IS ANNOYING! Seriously if it was just one beep, fine, I could deal with that. It might not even wake me up. But 9 or 10 beeps?! What could you possibly be doing that you can't turn it off?! Get it freaken fixed.

And the past few times it's happened I've tried to get up and see which car it is but I haven't figured it out while I'm pissed and stumbling around in the middle of the night. Maybe just to check if it's a touch sensitive alarm I will go out and touch every car parked in front. And if I find it...EVERY TIME...I walk by this car I will set it's alarm off just to be annoying so maybe this person will get rid of it.

So I learned a few things...chicago vs. nyc

When I was living in NYC I mostly took the train, hardly ever the bus. In fact I only took the bus once by myself. Every other time I was with someone. I always thought the buses were more confusing. But here in Chicago I've been trying out the buses. The bus stop is closer to our apartment than the train, although the train is not far. Well let's just get to it, today I took the bus by myself.

I knew where I was going, so I wasn't scared of getting lost, so I'm just trying to relax and listen to some music. On the way downtown some crazy lady got on the bus and I noticed she was pretty much having a conversation with an invisible person. So then of course I take off the headphones and try to listen in to what she could possibly be talking about to this invisible person so intensely. She's just crazy man. I can barely hear what she's saying but it's all nonsense. It's like having a conversation with your friend at work and you're talking about someone at work you don't like. She's gossiping to an invisible person. I know she probably has like schizophrenia so whatever...that was my bus ride to downtown.

On my way back home it was even CRAZIER! I walked into a crazy lady having a debate with someone else about racism. And how one person can't make a difference. It doesn't matter what she does in life she's not making a difference. Pretty much she has like 4 strangers listening to her and one woman is getting kinda mad about it. Normally if someone is crazy you should probably just ignore them, but this woman was like asking the crazy lady questions. And not to mess with her, to just argue or prove a point against her. There's 2 things you should do to crazy people: ignore them or mess with them. Never go along with them hahaha! So the normal lady asked the crazy lady "so what's your take on God?" So we've went from racism to making a difference and then a couple of Obama health care reform comments to now religion. So what's her take on God?..."Listen we all have earthquakes, hemispheres....atmospheres...." SERIOUSLY...what does that even mean? I suggest using it though. Good quote.

From religion we went to terrorism. How we got to that I don't know. Crazy lady said something like "A terrorist isn't someone out in the desert! A terrorist is someone taking money out of my paycheck!" There were many common things that we struggle with every day, that according to this woman were terrorists. Things I never really thought terrorized me, but had me second guessing. Especially when she brought up this one: "A terrorist is when you order an egg-roll and it tastes like fish."

Montauk Dream.

so last night i was having a dream i was in Montauk with don. we were at montauk point and we could see the lighthouse. for some reason there was giant building right behind us. we were kinda just standing outside looking around at the water. there were a lot of people just walking around and at the beaches. i looked up at the sun and said something about how the sun was always brighter here. don said "dont look at the sun" it was one of those days when you could see the sun and the moon. i was looking up and noticed that not only could we see the moon but also it looked like the moon had a reflection. so there was the sun, the moon and something else that looked like the moon in the sky. for some reason we didn't think this was odd so we just kept doing whatever we were doing here.

all of the sudden we hear people kinda panicking and pointing up to the sky. the thing that looked like another moon was coming down from the sky. like a meteor. it was coming fast. we turned around and started to run. we were running so fast and the thing hit the building that we were standing next to earlier. debris starting flying all around us but we kept running.

i couldn't believe that we were still running. we were alive and i didn't feel out of breath. it was like a movie. all of the sudden were in like an underground parking garage. we were pretty far away from whatever just fell out of the sky so we decided to rest.

a group of girls showed up and they were kinda like the "bad guys" or something. they wanted to steal from us they were bullying us until one of them starting screaming out in pain. she was moving around like crazy. and she was becoming covered in spiders. the spiders were not that big maybe the size of a quarter and she was being bit all over by them. the spiders were coming out of a crack in the floor and they were not slowing down. they were coming for all of us so we started to run again.

we ran through buildings...it was like people had went a little crazy and in some of the rooms people were killing other people. it was like running through a haunted house and every room has something different, gross, and scary. except it was real.

and that's all i remember.

You suck, Applebee's.

so i've always thought applebee's was a decent restaurant. they have a good variety of food so out of those types of restaurants i'd say it was in my top 5.

i never really like applebee's until mary and i ordered the nachos. their nachos were some of the best nachos EVER. so me and her would both order these giant nachos and it was amazing. it was like a guilty pleasure. we would go there and just pig out.

when i moved to ny though i had no one to eat these nachos with...so i kinda just forgot about them. one time i did happen to order them though and they were just as amazing.

here's the thing though...there is an applebee's right next to the theater we usually go to in battery park. so we would go there but awhile ago i noticed they replaced the good nachos with new nachos called "chili cheese nachos"...so i was mad but at least they still had the buffalo chicken salad and the buffalo chicken sandwich because those were the other 2 things i liked.

so then i went to applebee's again and now not only are the nachos gone but the buffalo chicken salad was now gone! and i'm just like seriously!!! so out of the 8 different salads they have they get rid of the one that i like?!! okay but at least i can still order the buffalo chicken sandwich.

yesterday we went to a movie and afterwards were like lets go to applebee's. i was looking at the menu thinking about the buffalo chicken sandwich...it's really good and IT'S GONE! replaced with some new reuben sandwich....SERIOUSLY?! out of the 3 things on the menu worth getting they are now all 3 gone....?! the 3 things i order?! like they just randomly chose out of a hat which things to replace and all three that i like got chopped?! what are the freaken chances?!

so after this i am done with applebee's. within a year they have gotten rid of everything worth me getting on their menu. i dont know if they have done this in other states...so until someone can prove they have 1 of these 3 things on the menu i will not eat there. the rest of the stuff is crap. applebee's you should really consider keeping things on your menu...why not just keep things and add new things?! is it cheaper for you guys to make a crappy chili cheese nachos rather than your original ones? is there a shortage of buffalo sauce for your salads and sandwiches so now you can only afford the sauce for your wings? which by the way the buffalo wings are pretty good. but i'm sure if i went there again those would be replaced.