Favorite word of the day...

Wanderlust
{Won-der-luhst}
-Noun
A strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.

Yes please!

Chicago!

Chi-Town. The Windy City. Chicago.


Whatever you wanna call it. It is a beautiful city. I so loved it there. Well except for the wind!


I didn't really know a whole lot about the city prior to going. I knew some of the main points that I wanted to see/do. The Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), Millenium Park, The Bean, Pizza, Wrigley Field, Michigan Ave, etc. What I really wanted to do was to just walk the city. I love exploring new cities. Especially by foot and subway. I guess I'm just a wanderer.


I have a friend that lives there that emailed me a lovely list of specific places to go. Restaurants, pubs and sites. We ended up at a bunch of the places she suggested.


My friend Jenn and I met up at Chicago O'Hare (which is a huge place to meet up with someone. just saying.). We both flew from California but we flew from separate airports. We each wanted to earn points on different airlines. We're nerds like that. So I flew out of LAX and her from Orange County. We got to Chicago within 10 minutes of each other. Perfect!


Taxi'd it to the hotel and then it was off to explore.


Ok. So let's talk about the deep dish pizza. The first night, we went to Pizzeria Due. We ordered our deep dish pizzas (which take about 40min to bake. Just fyi). I had no idea that the crust would actually be kind of like pie crust. And I hate pie crust! So ew. I didn't love it. However, the middle was good. Our concierge gave us her suggestion for pizza which was Pizano's. Pizano's was actually on my list from my friend. It also showed up in some of the magazines in the hotel. Apparently it's Oprah's favorite thin crust pizza. Pizano's was sooooo good. I loved it. I did have the thin crust though. I wasn't ready to try deep dish again. :-)


Overall, the city was great. I found it to be clean. Or maybe it was the rain. I noticed that trash is not piled up in front of stores along the street like in NYC. Chicago must use their alleys. :-) I loved the contrast between the city architechture and the river running between. Our weather kept changing so we got to experience all of that. It even hailed at one point which threw me off. I thought the wind was throwing dirt in my face. I was really grossed out. Then I looked at my jacket and noticed it was actually baby hail! You know I'm from Orange County when I'm thinking hail is dirt! Sorry, never have experienced hail before. haha.


I LOVED the pubs and restaurants there. Very old fashioned. Laid back but very nice. Not dive bar like. I think I would definitely drink more if I lived there. I really enjoyed the atmosphere.


Well, enough of my babble. Here are the pics from the trip. This was the first time I've used my new SLR camera on a trip. The pictures came out nice. I'm happy!




Self explanatory but this is the Chicago Riverwalk.

City scape

See what I mean about the city and water contrast? I love it!

I thought this looked like one of those Christmas villages. :-)

This was a church with an open courtyard. It was kind of creepy but cool! A nice find.

The courtyard


Millenium Park. Look at the colors!

The Bean in Millenium Park. Way too much fun.


Accidental extreme close up self portrait in the Bean.

Us in the Bean

I love the fall colors!

The EL. (Elevated Subway)

Jenn

Me. My face was freezing. haha.

103rd Floor of the Willis Tower on 'The Ledge' which is basically like a plexiglass box that jets out so it looks down on the city. Scary. But so cool. Willis Tower is the 2nd tallest building in the world!


The ChristkindleMarket. A German Christmas market we found. They served hot cocoa, spiced wine and hot cider. They sold traditional German products/ornaments and food. We were also there for the official lighting of the Christmas Tree by the Mayor that night.

I loved these subway entrances along the street.

The tree lighting ceremony at the ChristkindleMarket. Fireworks included! Nice, free Christmassy event.

It was seriously like a Fa la la la Lifetime movie. I loved it!

TRAVEL TIP: When I check in at the hotel, I usually grab some of the magazines and maps that the concierge have. They are city specific and usually have subway and street maps that you can tear out and take with you. Some of them also have calendars of what is going on during your stay. They're free. Grab them and use them!!

Travel Girl's Chicago read:

Deception Point by Dan Brown (It was really good by the way. Read it.)

Travel Girl's Chicago playlist:

The XX's

Maroon 5 (a few of their new songs.)

Taylor Swift's new album (did you hear the song about John Mayer? omg. Awesome. Google it!)

Thanks for reading travel peeps!

Until next time...

My Zune makes me happy.

I've had my Zune for about 5 years now. I've loved having it. It's basically the Microsoft version of an iPod. So, why not just get the iPod like everyone else? I know. I must be a rebel. :-) Anyway, I love it and I use it all the time. I use it in my car pretty much everyday. I take it on trips with me. I have music and TV shows loaded on it. It also has a few games. I definitely got my money's worth.



Well.....the other day I dropped it. On tile. Needless to say, it did not survive. No more Zune for me.

The good news is. I've been wanting to get a new one. The one I had was big and bulky and just out of date. I just wasn't ready to make the big purchase. I'm a girl who lives on a budget okay??!


More good news. I've been working a lot of overtime. A lot!!! Which means my paychecks are also more than normal which helped pay for the new one.


I LOVE my new Zune HD!! It's very small so I'm still getting used to that. It's touch screen and high def. When a song is playing, it has pictures of the artist crawling across the screen. It's just really cool and I'm so excited to have a Zune in my life again. I knew I had to get a new one by the time I took my next trip. Plus I've been listening to CDs in my car. CDs!! haha. I love to watch TV episodes on flights as well. Time goes by very quickly. Love it.


Well, I know most people will just go with the crowds and buy an iPod (which is great too). But i'm just saying. If you are interested in the Zune HD at all. I definitely recommend it.



You're welcome!!

Workaholic's Don't Travel!

So, I would not really consider myself a career girl. I am not aiming to become some top Executive. I don't have awesome girl power career goals. HOWEVER.....I do take my job very seriously. When I'm there, I'm 100%. I try very hard to do a really great job. I take pride in my work. I try to be organized. I want to learn new things. I research if I don't know how to do something. I want to fully understand what my job is. I want my bosses and colleagues to think of me as a key player. I stay late and work weekends if need be to make sure my work is taken care of. All of those good things. But like I said. No grand career aspirations.

I do enjoy my hectic job. This new job is an extension of what I was doing at my previous job. Adding to that, a whole new accounting side. Plus a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Throw in many meetings and there you have it. I also have the whole commute thing which adds about 3 hours to my day.

My main boss (who we call 'Mom') just reassigned all of our upcoming groups. Long story short, we got assigned to specific managers and we will now take on their specific groups. Well, my 2 assigned managers just happen to be VERY busy in the next few months and the beginning of next year. So, their groups will now be my groups. Plus I have my own groups. Also will still have a few groups I have kept from other managers that I was already involved in. Starting in the next few days, I will be slammed until November 19!! I will have one week of freedom and then more groups until December 14. I have not had a day off (minus the weekends) since my New York trip in January! Not even one day. Boo hoo!

So, what is my point??!! My point is....I need to ask Mom Boss for a few days off during that week so I can for sure take a little trip! I need to ask her NOW before she assigns another group to me during that week. So that's the plan. Mom Boss is crazy busy right now, but I think the sooner I ask her, the better. I may sneak my request on her desk tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!!

By the way. I'm thinking this may be a good time for that Chicago trip I've been wanting to do. Thoughts?

Sincerely,
LA Working Girl

Seattle, Washington!

Seattle
October, 2009

Sorry for the delay, Travel Friends!! The Seattle post is here!!!

Seattle was great. It's only a few hour flight from Orange County, so we arrived in the early afternoon. Just enough time to check out Pike Place Public Market and downtown Seattle on our first night.

Our hotel was a few blocks from Pike Place Market. ( www.pikeplacemarket.org ) The market consisted of fish, flowers, local art, fruits, vegetables and tons of different souvineer/gift shops. The surrounding area also is the home to cheese shops, pastry shops and the very first Starbucks store!! There are also restaurants and a few bars hidden away. There are always street performers as well. One of the funny ones we saw was the Cat Psychiatrist. haha. You bring your cat and they analyze it. Apparently he is a regular near Pike Market. Also, you have to visit the world famous Pike Place Fish Market. (www.pikeplacefish.com) They love tourists so stop by and visit them! They will throw fish at you and pose for pictures. :-)





First Starbucks!








We also checked out Downtown Seattle a few times. Tons of coffee houses and shopping. Kind of a mini (shorter) version of New York City. It was really nice.



Rainy Seattle night...







The view of the rain from inside Starbucks!




View from the Elevator near our hotel.


View of Mt. Rainier! We didn't even know it was there for a few days until the rain took a little break.

We decided to take a ferry that went to Bainbridge. My travel teacher once told me that anytime you have the chance to see the city from the water, do it! This was the best $7 we spent. It was about a 1/2 hour ferry ride. The ferry is huge and there were not too many people on it. So we had fun running around snapping pictures of all of the wonderful views we had. We got off the boat at Bainbridge, but if you want to just go straight back to Seattle, you just get right back on when they allow it and you won't have to pay again. So, that is what we did. Check out some of the views!

Check out the Space Needle to the left!

Bainbridge Island in the background. It was really pretty!

Back in Seattle....

Near the ferry, you will find Ivars Seafood. ( www.ivars.net) You can either eat in their waterfront restaurant, or you can go to the walk up stand like we did. They have fish and chips, prawns and chips and of course, clam chowder. I'm not a seafood person at all! But I did make it a point to have the prawns. They were good. Not great, but good. My friend loved the fish and the chowder.

The seagulls wait for the customers to feed them their leftover french fries.

While in Seattle, we were told we needed to go to the Seattle Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. (www.empsfm.org) Although it was not really a huge interest to me, I can appreciate that some people would really love this place. There was a room on the history of guitars, a room deticated to all things Jimi Hendrix, album covers, sound effects and much more. There is a room where you can be filmed talking about why a specific album or song or singer has inspired you and they may end up showing it in the museum. They also have tons of iPod's through out the place built into side tables so you can sit with behind the scenes interviews, songs and more. There was one room that grabbed my attention. Tons of areas where you can play with musical instruments that are hooked to computers. So if you are a beginner, it will teach you a little bit of a song and if you are experienced, you can have a jam session. There are guitars, keyboards, drums, mixing and singing rooms. Very fun to play with!

Inside the Experience Music Project. Art made from instruments. Some of them were actually rigged to play on their own.

Next stop was the Seattle Space Needle. It was kind of rainy but we decided to just go up there anyways since we weren't sure if the rain would ever stop! It was cold and windy, but they do have a huge indoor section.

View from the top!

The Space Needle


Supposedly, this is used in Grays Anatomy. Mainly the helio pad at the top for scenes where they show the helicoptors landing and departing from the roof top.

We went on a little bus tour where it was just us and 1 other guy! It was good though. Our driver grew up in Seattle so he knows all the history and now we know his history too! haha. The one bad thing is that there were a few times where we really wanted to get out and take pictures but we felt bad asking. We did get to get off the bus in Pioneer Square for a few minutes and then once up in the hills. But I really wish I had asked to stop a few other times. Like up in the hills near all of the fancy houses and the great view of the city and also the houseboats on Lake Union (Sleepless in Seattle house!). Oh well! I hear the Lake Union boat tour is cool too because you get to see the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat up close.

Pioneer Square- artsy town. Bookstores, bars and coffee houses. Very cute.

The view where we got to stop in the hills. You can see the Space Needle in the background.

Overall, we had a really good time discovering Seattle. We saw a lot, but there is still much more to do. If you have a car and a passport, I would suggest doing the drive up to Vancouver. One thing I learned about Seattle is that the city closes down early! Now it could be that we were there in an off season but everything was closed by like 5-6pm. It could just be the area that we were in but we tried going to a few bars and they were dead! All of the little shops were closed early too. So if you need anything from the store make sure you plan ahead!

Going Green and Saving Green-

My friend and I brought our eco friendly plastic water bottles with us to Seattle. Note that you have to empty it before you go through Security at the airports. This was the best! I don't know about you but I drink a ton of water on vaction. I'm usually walking a ton and I always end up spending most of my money on bottles of water. You can fill up your bottle at your hotel or a drinking fountain and always have free water! Our hotel always had iced fruit water in the lobby so we were always stocked up! So you are saving money and saving the environment from all of the plastic bottles you would be throwing out. Go Green!

Thanks for reading! Hope my post or pictures make you want to go to Seattle too!

Happy Travels!