Pensacola, Puppies, and Party People

I love the beach. It is my happy place. Specifically, Pensacola Beach in Florida. I have been going with my family since I was 7. It has changed a lot, especially since Ivan and Opal, but it is still one of my favorite places in the world.
I am going to be posting pictures for days, y’all should just prepare yourselves for the onslaught. I joined the rest of the world and got a DSLR for my Birthday! Don’t worry though, I will never give up crappy phone pictures.
We had fantastic weather. September, barring hurricanes, is the BEST month for the beach. School is back in, so screaming children and douchey frat bros are mostly absent. It isn’t too hot and there is usually a good breeze. And the beaches are empty. We had maybe 3 other groups within 100 yards of us. I completely expect, wherever we go, for it to be absent of other people. Completely rational.
But who cares, here are the two cutest puppies in the world.

Bean. She is out of breath b/c of the huge amount of spazzing she does when M comes home.

Mabel. Fat and sassy. Are you jealous of their awesome star blanket? It really adds something to the décor of my living room, I think.

Look who figured out bokeh on the new camera. Professional photographer right here.

The last day we were there the water was so clear and flat! No waves to speak of.

I have millions of more pictures of ocean, birds, flowers, grass, and me making funny faces which I will be sharing eventually. Y’all know me, I don’t want to raise standards of this blog by posting more than once a week.
Tonight I have to go back to boot camp after a week and a half off. I’m going to die. Though I have been doing crazy boot camp in the back yard, courtesy of the 100+ yo tree that fell. Turns out cutting and moving a tree is really hard.

Epic Chinese Dinner

I've been a terrible poster lately. I kind of just feel blah and like I don't have a lot to say. Unless you want to talk about Harry Potter, in which case I'm there. 

So instead, I thought I would just post about 10 pictures of the insane chinese dinner we had in Toronto. I just embraced my white girl-ness and just took pictures of everything. Everyone at my table thought this was funny. Along with my accent.

 First up is the random meat course! There were like 4 types of meat. I didn't know what any of them were. Also, you know that Coke and wine are mine! I was so psyched for coke and alcohol, y'all don't even understand. I started stealing cokes from other tables by the end.

Course 2: Shrimp/Crab? Poof! There was rice in there. It was not terrible.

Course 3: scallops and some veggies. That is a little fried rice noodle nest and is actually really tasty!  

 

Course 4: Shark Fin Soup

I tried this b/c it is a delicacy and super expensive and special occasion food(for example the last time my MIL had this was at her wedding 40 yrs ago!) but I felt really terrible about it. I find the fishing of shark fins to be pretty unnecessary and cruel. I know I also eat meat and dairy, so it isn't like I am being un-hypocritical here. I just had a moral/ethical problem with it.

For the record, it wasn't very good. It tasted like ham/chicken broth but with a gelatinous texture. The texture really grossed me out and I am not someone bothered by mouthfeel (which is a totally gross and awesome word used in my cooking classes that I try to use all the time.) 

Course 5: mushrooms. I don't even know. A lot of these courses that look like they have this kind of clear/shiny sauce taste the same to me. I am not a huge fan of the sauce flavor, so it all tasted kind of vaguely the same. 

At one point during this course one of my table mates turns to me and says "Do you know what you are eating?" Me: "Oh, God. What? Don't tell me!" Her: "Fungus!" Oh, yeah that's fine. I knew that. 

Course 6: Duck

Yes, we are still eating.

Course 7: Lobster and crab. 

Tasty, but let me tell you how difficult it is to crack a lobster claw WITH CHOPSTICKS! The entire table was entertained by my efforts. Finally they told me you are allowed to just pick it up and eat it that way. 

Courses 8,9,10

Cake-which was amazing and I started looking around at other tables to eat theirs

In the background you can see rice in a lotus leaf and noodles.

Then it was the traditional Chinese dessert of bean paste. It is like a black bean soup with sugar. It is fine, but it is not dessert!

It took roughly 5 hours to eat all this!! I was exhausted from eating. I took pics of everything b/c I find it so interesting and SO different from my regular life. I just embrace not knowing what is going on or what I'm eating.  I've learned what to eat and what not to eat! 

Anyone had a crazy dinner like this? Have you ever eaten for 5-6 hours?? What is the weirdest food you have ever tried? 

ETA-I took pictures of the food for the entire table (10ish people.) So each plate for each course was a very small amount of food. One shrimp, 2 small pieces of duck, etc. Each course was about the size of 1/2 my fist or so. Christina asked how we could eat so much! It is a looooot of food, but spread out over hours (and hours and hours) and in small increments. It is like going to a party and just snacking the entire time. It was still quite a bit of food and I was pretty over it by course 3!

More pictures in which I am being inappropriate

I have several serious posts brewing, but in the meantime I leave you with a few pictures of me embarrassing myself and others.

Every year M's residency has a graduation dinner for the fellows and residents. This year it was at a Motorsports park in this museum of classic cars and motorcycles.


They also have sculptures outside. Of naked dudes. On Segways. You see where this is going.

photography note: standing as wide as possible does not lead to flattering pictures. 

Why yes, his entire residency and attendings were just inside or walking past. I try not to let dignity hold me back from a good picture.

After that dinner we went to a going away party for friends who moved to Portland...which I just can't talk about.  Then we went to the world's sketchiest bar for karaoke! 

I am only posting a picture of me to protect the guilty. 

Y'all I don't even know what this thing was. It was called "The Baby". I didn't order it and I assure you I didn't drink the entire thing. I think 12 of us might have been drinking out of it at one point. The karaoke was fantastic and we had some serious performers. 

I'm obviously keeping it real and classy here on this blog.

More pictures in which I am drinking

Enjoying a nice Pinot at Happy Hour somewhere on the Harbor. Then we went to play mini golf! Because we are the two nerdiest nerds who ever nerded, 

Also, I'm surprisingly good at mini golf. It doesn't really make any sense. 

After mini golf we wandered around and eventually ate somewhere lackluster. Oh well. At least it was pretty. 

Michael decided to take pictures of me while we waited for our food. 

I got tired of it after awhile. 

(Also pictured: HUMIDITY)

Here is the secret to enjoying a touristy beach area: GO EARLY. We ate dinner each night at like 5-5:30 (sadly, no senior citizen discounts were granted.) First, everyone is still at the beach. Second, HAPPY HOUR. If you go after 6 there is at least an hour wait. 

 

We went to McGuire's which was having 2 for 1 special. I mean, obviously I had to get two margaritas, right? That's just math. 

Ate some delicious mahi mahi and the world's most baconiest baked potato.

So yes, I may have gained 2-3 lbs in Florida. WORTH IT.

Very short beach recap

We ate a lot. Drank a lot. Sat on the beach.

The end!

Here are a few pics. We took zero of us together, so it is mostly pictures of me drinking to be honest.

Beach! As you can see there was a bit of seaweed. Y'all seaweed freaks me out. I just can't stand it touching me. 

Oh my gosh you guys. We went to a restaurant on the harbor to kill some time before we could get into the condo. But, it had to be somewhere dog friendly b/c we took our puppies with us. Yes, we are those people. I love taking them with us on vacation. I researched and found a place that would let us sit outside with them. They even brought out doggy bowls and treats!

So we are there, just going to have a late lunch and waste some time. Our waiter takes our order and as he is leaving just lets it drop that, oh by the way, we have bottomless champagne FOR $7 for the next two hours. SOLD. I'm pretty sure that sitting in the sun, on the water, with my husband and dogs, drinking bottomless champagne is my very own personal heaven. I want to live there forever. 

After refilling my glass for the eleventh time I say "oh, why don't you just leave the bottle and save yourself a trip!" 

AND HE DID

IT WAS AMAZING

Unsurprisingly, I had to take a little nap when we got to our condo. The restaurant clearly underestimated my ability to get as much as possible for very little money.

Up next: more pictures of me drinking things!

Best dietitian ever!

Last Chicago

So our last full day in Chicago happened to be M's bday! So we actually managed to spend some time together just the two of us.

We had Lou Malnati's. Yum Chicago pizza. All cheese. Tiny individual ones.So cute!

Then we walked around the park and saw The Bean. I'm in love with the Bean. It was way too cold to go last time.

 Self portraits in the bean are required.

How cute is that? 

Not as cute as this Bean!

When she was a little Beanie puppy. Look at that face!

The view inside the bean

 

Beautiful Spring!

We went to Navy Pier after. It was kind of meh. Mostly just a pier with various fried foods (thumbs up!) but they were largely still closed for winter (thumbs down.)

We did ride the ferris wheel. I had a couple almost freakouts, but largely held it together. I am not a big fan of heights if I feel like I could fall. At one point I became convinced the only thing holding the ferris wheel on was a 6 inch rail rolling over a wheel-thus if it went right or left we would just fall off and roll into the lake. M tried to convince me that there were probably more safety measures in place. 

 But it was a pretty view!

And then we ate dinner. And then we went home. The end to Chicago!

Chicago even more

Fancy dinner time!

So, one of the residents knew a drug rep who wanted to take us to dinner. Drug rep dinners are stuff of legends. They are pretty rare due to rules (boo!), economy, and the fact that these kids are radiologists and thus have nothing to prescribe. Drug reps pay for dinner-anything, anywhere. Someone suggested Chicago Chop House...because it was crazy expensive. I'm going to be super tacky and talk money, only b/c it was so insane and SO not the norm for us. We cheap. I'm only talking about money b/c it was so mind boggling. And we ate a lot.



Hello, beautiful. This is a dry aged ribeye. Y'all, this steak was everything that is good and right in the world. Cartoon birds starting flying around my head. You could cut it with a fork.








all for a mere $99. A bargain.

Usually I'm too embarrassed to take a pic of my food, but I was straight up like "I'm taking a pic of this $100 steak. I don't even care. once my phone came out, so did everyone's.

We also had these amazing giant scallops with ahi tuna for an appetizer. And like 9 bottles of wine (for 15 people. not all for me, sadly.) The thing about fancy expensive places is they never let you run out of wine. I have quickly become accustomed to this level of service and opulence. I think my steak was the best. A lot of the boys got kobe steaks and they weren't amazing. They were tasty, but for $100 that steak better make me see the face of God imo. Everything was crazy delicious, but I would neeeevvvveeer pay that for food.

Then we went out to Moe's for many margaritas. I have pictures, but apparently after 5 glasses of wine and 2 margaritas, I decided I didn't need to use the flash anymore. So if you want to see pitch black, blurry pictures let me know.

Thursday I think
M went to conference, then a riverboat casino. Seriously. I don't like to just throw money away, so I went shopping ; ) At least I get something in return for my money. Made it all the way up and back down Miracle Mile and felt like I was going to die. Even comfy shoes aren't comfy after that much time on your feet.

It is really hard to get a pic of the back of your own foot/achilles tendon. This is the fricking bruise I got from my shoes (cankles also pictured.) These are from comfy, broken in Clarks that I wore all during my internship. wow this is a weird picture.

All the flowers on Michigan ave were blooming. Each block had these amazing planters. They even smelled good!

Then we had dinner at Shaw's where I had some kind of lobster cheese pasta. No pics b/c I inhaled it. 

We walked around Hubbard St. and went into a few bars for Cinco de Mayo. I was super tired for shopping and the night before, so I folded early. Mostly going out made me be really, really happy to be married. Boys are brutal, even the nice ones, it seems. 

Posting for now b/c my laptop is overheating and burning me.

Chicago continued

Onward with more Chicago! I know this happened last week, but I swear I can't keep my days straight. I'm looking at pictures like 'when did this happen? was I there?'

Wednesday (?)

Lincoln Park Zoo! We love zoos. Zoos are our thing-we go in every city if there is a decent one. We wanted to go last visit, but I just wasn't up for a zoo visit in 25 degree weather. Princess, that's me. It was a beautiful day. That cold but crystal clear and sunny kind of weather. It had been pretty cool earlier in the week, but it started to warm up finally into the upper 50's. So it was perfect zoo weather.


We went to Rockit Bar for lunch first. This is the home of, maybe, my favorite hamburger on the planet. And I'm a connoisseur of cheeseburgers. I take my food very seriously.
Burger with brie, wild mushroom mix, and truffle aioli. and sweet potato fries. M had truffle oil fries which were pretty rad as well. This burger is truth, justice, and the american way. Sorry to my veg/vegan readers for the beef porn.









Walked around for a bit before catching a cab

Onward to the zoo!

How pretty is this little area? Everything in Chicago was blooming. It was Spring part 2. 

This tiger was stalking back and forth at this window for like 30 mins. Michael made me stand here for 10 of them trying to take a picture. This is that picture. I didn't feel like a goober standing there with a fake smile plastered to my face for 10 mins at all. 

Pretend there are giraffes behind us

This is taking a long time, so I'm posting. Next up: the most glorious and expensive meal I have ever had.