Chi-Town

As promised, here are some lovely pictures of my trip to Jill's in Chicago.  It was really fun, I am sad to be back to real life.

We started out going to the cutest little Vietnamese restaurant. It smelled amazing and was so clean, with the cutest little ladies working there.  It was also really inexpensive. Jill and I each got a sandwich and a coke. We shared huge spring rolls, and for both of us it was under $15.00

This is a picture of my sandwich.  I got lemon grass chicken,  on this amazing French bread.  They are all topped with carrots, cucumber,  jalapenos, and cilantro. this is seriously one of the best things I have ever had.

These are the spring rolls that we shared. They were so big we ate about half of this. There was shrimp, pork, and tofu, with delicious peanut sauce.

Here is beautiful Jill enjoying her sandwich.

            

We then took the el downtown. here are some tracks that we rode on.

Beautiful downtown

The river that runs through downtown.

This is the bean in Grant Park downtown Chicago, and Jill and my reflection in the bean!

A beautiful Chicago theater all lit up.

This was my lunch at a restaurant called "Urban Belly" it is kind of an Asian infusion.  This is a hot dog with kimchi, crunchy noodles and some amazing sauces. On the side are some of the best fries, and a delicious curry dipping sauce. Seriously good!

Here is the only picture that came out from the Aquarium.  I don't know what happened that day, but none of my pictures turned out.  This is a Green tree python. We also saw some Monkeys, a lot of fish, octopus, wales, sharks and other crazy animals.

After the aquarium, we went to China town.  It was fun just to walk around and see neat stuff.

 Just on the street was a man with barrels full of live blue crabs. he was cleaning them and getting ready to sell.

We had worked up an appetite dong all that walking and decided to get some appetizers at a chic restaurant in China town.  We got pot stickers, crab and cream cheese won tons, and hot and sour soup.  Little  did we know the portions were going to be so big. Below is Jill and I eating our soup. You can see how large the bowl is, we didn't even finish half of it.

The last of Alaska

 I'm sure by now you are sick of reading about my season in Alaska, but when I put my pictures of  Chicago on my computer, I found a few more...  These are from the ferry ride to Juneau with Miss Bethesda, one of the most beautiful people I know!

Beautiful fall colors.

 It was pretty stormy that day, and really windy.  Around every bend there was a new rainbow to see. These are two pictures of different rainbows. (if you want to see them bigger, just click on them, and any others you want to have a closer look at).

 Miss Beth was very tired and decided to take a nap on some chairs (which were not very comfy) this short sleep ended in some wicked face creases!

Here is Beth pre-nap enjoying some cool fall air

Caution- Don't do this! (this was on the sign to the Mendenhal Glacier trail)

The beautiful Mendenhal glacier in Juneau.  You can see little ice burgs floating around too.

Us crazy girls at the glacier.

Chicago!

I am in Chicago, and having a great time.  It has been so nice, fun and relaxing to hang out with Jill, and do whatever we want.  The weather has been great, with a hint of fall in the air, and fall colors everywhere you look.  I have made a goal to take lots of pictures (a habit I am usually not very good at), but unfortunately I forgot my camera cord, so those are still to come.

Also my very good friend is going to grad school at NYU (she is a smarty pants), and she took a little upstate trip.  It looks like so much fun to see all the history (especially Susan B. Anthony's house) chick it out here.

Suffragette women hold a banner quoting Susan B. Anthony to help enfranchise women

Up in the air real life

Beautiful Jill and I doing what we do best

I am sitting at the airport again.  This makes 3 trips in 3 weeks.  I am starting to feel like George Clooney in "up in the air."  This time is different though, I am so excited to see my good friend Jill in her hometown, Chicago!  Not only do I love the windy city, but I love Jill! It has been Months since I have last seen her when we worked together in Ak.  After being in Skagway, population 600 on a good winter day, Big city living is much needed for a couple of days.

I NEED A HERO! (like Bonnie Tyler said)

I started back at my old job in Salt Lake last week when I got home from Alaska.  Because I had been gone for so long, I had to come back like I was a new employee.  That means I had to get a new work e-mail, and everything.  The only thing that I needed was my password that pretty much controls everything I have to do (i.e. logging on, payroll, email, etc.). However, to ensure security they force you to change your password every so often.  To make it easy on myself I would change one number of my password so I didn’t have to change the whole thing every time.  Little did I know it would actually make it harder in the long run.  Because I couldn’t remember the one changed number of my password, I had to call to get it reset.  I called, and a man answered who had no sense of humor whatsoever, but was helpful, so at least he knew how to do his job.  I told him the situation and he asked me to answer my security questions; #1- what is the name of your elementary school? – Well, that’s easy, Rosecrest.  #2- Who is your hero?-…..blank.  I have no idea who I would have put for my hero on a stupid security question.  I say to the boring man “I have no idea what I put for this.” He says “It starts with an H.” I quickly think of people’s names that start with H….nope, can’t do it.  So I say so. He then says “H-A.” And I think oh crap. “Did I put myself as my hero?” and laugh loudly (in my very quite crowded office) “Yup” is all the man says and does not think the situation is humorous at all.  And THEN I remember putting myself as my hero not because I am a narcissistic jerk (which I’m sure is what humorless phone guy thought), but because at that time I couldn’t think who to put as my hero that I would remember, so I put my own name thinking surly I would recall that moment.   Sorry out there boring, overly serious password resetting phone guy, I hope I don’t really know you in real life. I guess I need to get a real hero.

Land of the midnight sun!

Now that I am home, I have been getting a lot of questions about Alaska.  "Why would you want to go there?" "What did you do there?" "What is it like?" I don't know if anyone who reads this asked those questions...I don't know if anyone reads this actually (except for Lyn who "forced" me to start this!) anyway I though I would show you what I did in a series of pictures, not because I dislike the questions just because...well, it's fun! I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to ask anymore questions!

 I worked on a train as a tour guide as well as working in the gift shop so here are some pictures of the train. I don't have any of the gift shop because that's just boring!

 Here is Miss Rhiannon giving her first tour ever! She was on of the 4 new people with me.

 Here is Beth (Bethesda) working it on the train in Fraser, British Columbia.

 This is "Lep," that's short for leprechaun...Alaska is a magical place

 

 Train track at Lake Bennett Yukon Territory, Canada

 Enough about work, in our free time we did such activities like: having bonfires!

 Hanging out at "The Point," overlooking the ocean-down the lynn Canal 

Hanging out with amazing people- This is at the summer solstice party

 Shooting guns! Every Alaskan woman should know how after all.

Hiking! This is a group of us that went on a hike to Lost Lake in Dyea. We went wild blueberry picking at the top.

 Taking helicopters to glaciers and hanging out on them! (from the helicopter)

 Glacier as we get closer!

 Big Mulin (Glacier holes)

 My mom and I on the glacier when she visited

 Jill and I horseback riding. Her horses name was "Black Sabbath", and mine was "Vic"

Motherland

I have made it back to the motherland (aka Salt Lake City, Utah) and it is strange to be here. I left Skagway, AK last Saturday, stayed a couple days in Juneau, AK with some friends, and then flew home yesterday. It seems like a lot of things have changed since I have been gone the last 6 months.  More friends are married, have babies, have moved away, have gotten new jobs, graduated, gone back to school, etc.  I miss everyone terribly from Alaska, and feel kind of lost now.  I am sure I will get back into the swing of things here soon enough, after all I have only been back for 1 full day.  I have many a great picture to post from Skagway as well as Juneau, and those will be coming soon.

Clare and the Reasons - All The Wine

Packing music

It is about 1 am here in Skagway, it is dark and cold, and I can here the wind howling outside my door, making my screen door slam every once in a wile. All I want is to be warm in bed with freshly washed hair (because mine smells like The Station, which if you are familiar with you know it sucks) but unfortunately I have laundry in the washer and I have a lot of packing and cleaning to do. I have however decided to take a short break because I am so excited about this new music that is making this whole situation a little easier to handle.  I love this new band called Clare and the Reasons.  They almost have a 1920's vibe to them which I really enjoy! Also check out the vidio it is really cute and clever.  Have a listen up above, I hope you enjoy them too!

French baking

I have an off and on dream of someday, when I'm settled and know more what I'm doing with my life to open a bakery. I want it to be sort of half like the cool hip bakery on "Stranger than Fiction," and half like the boutique style bakery, sophisticated and classy like on "It's complicated." Somewhere with amazing french pastries, and maybe a coffee shop where you'd want to hang out, study or chat with friends, maybe have a romantic dessert with a loved one in the evening, but also somewhere that you would want to order things out for a big party or to take to the office.  I normally enjoy baking immensely, if I'm not in a hurry or too stressed.  I like to try new things every now and then, trying out new recipes to see if they cut it for my future establishment, or just to make my classic recipes that I know I love already.  Yesterday was one of those experimental days to try out a recipe I'd been thinking about.  It has once has continued to rain since my last post about the rain, and we had planned another movie night, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to test some eclairs out on my friends.  Although it started... and ended kind of rough due to the lack of supplies and appliances SE Alaska, and my company housing has to offer, I feel it was an overall success, and I would love to make them again when I have more things available at home.