Viva Las Vegas - Part V

Friday: Last full day in Las Vegas and we needed to make the most of it!!

First things first - back to the Imperial Palace for breakfast at the Hash House A-Go-Go. It was amazing but a legitimately ridiculous amount of food... I think they should put one in Charlotte!

I got the smoked salmon, brie, tomato, and pesto scramble. It came with a side of fruit (ha, why bother), a biscuit, and some mashed potatoes. I made a pretty good dent in this plate, but felt so full that I blacked out. I think my parents may have rolled me back to The Flamingo for a nap.

Please note: I did not black out from being so full, I blacked out from the 14 bloody mary's and 3 Long Island iced tea's I had with brunch.

Second note: just kidding. I did not black out nor was there room for ANY alcohol on Friday. I think I was full the entire day... yet I just kept eating... Funny how that goes.

Of course, I wanted to wander around Las Vegas some more and see the hotels that we hadn't seen yet. One on my list was the Aria - a little bit off the strip but the hotel looks so cool from the outside. So. Many. Hotel. Rooms. We stumbled across this chocolate/french pastry shop in the Aria. They had the most beautiful display of chocolates - each one was $2. Way too expensive and way too pretty to actually eat...

I got dressed in my Las Vegas sparkly finest for the last time this year ;-) and we went out exploring again! Jonathan and I really wanted to see the Wynn and the Encore.  These were two of the most elegant hotels I have ever been in! Absolutely beautiful. There were these two gorgeous Asian girls in very expensive clothing taking pictures in the lobby - in my mind, I decided they were princesses! I saw real princesses! Hehe.

While at the Encore, I got some sushi to-go at Wazuzu - Hungry Girl recommended it as the best sushi she has ever eaten. While I don't take all of her recommendations so seriously because she likes processed foods far more than I do, I couldn't let this opportunity slip by without trying some of their sushi. I got my usual order of a yellowtail scallion roll. This was probably the best sushi I have ever had - it was all about the rice! So so good. No pictures, it was all mangled in the to-go box by the time my mom found me a good spot on the strip to chow down.

I ate the sushi while watching the Treasure Island Pirate show (again.) While no one seemed to like it the first time around (except for me!), everyone seemed to enjoy it this time. Probably because we were all sitting down on the other side of the street, and not in the middle of the crowd. Then we watched the Volcanoes at The Mirage from across the street at the Venetian! A great spot to catch the show - it was not as awesome as the Pirates or the Fountains at the Bellagio.

We closed out the night with watching 2 of the fountain shows at the Bellagio! The more I watched them, the more I enjoyed them. See below for a video of 'Santa Baby' that I took! Sorry that this it is sideways - I am not sure if I can even flip videos I take with my phone? Had I known, I would have taken it the 'right' way. Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated!!

At this point, I was exhausted and it was time for bed! I wish I would have been more well-rested (or highly caffeinated) the entire time I was in Las Vegas.... but there's always next time!!

Spider bites and restaurants

As some of you know, I have been spending my days in Freeport, IL since the end of July. I am here supporting my old team for work as we go live on a new enterprise planning system (SAP, for those of you who are familiar). I am stationed at a distribution center up here. My team is holed up in a corner of the DC cafeteria. Here is a picture of my workspace, and my chair... Speaking of these chairs, they are painfully uncomfortable and I need a massage. ASAP. Anyone know of any good massage places in Charlotte?? I'll be back on Friday night!

The electric chair?

Yes, that is a smidge of sunlight that I see!

I have basically been working, working out (if I am lucky - read: not lazy), eating, and sleeping. I have squeezed in two movies (potential movie reviews to come?) and two trips to Chicago during my time here. All-in-all, it has been a pretty good trip! Slim pickin's on the restaurant selections though. In a small town, you tend to eat at the same places over and over again. My expense report looks something like this: Subway, Subway, Fuji (sushi), Subway, Cannova's (pizza), Subway, and Sushi.

It is a given and has already been discussed that I get some variation of Subway breakfast every morning since the hotel "buffet" is less-than-stellar.

Before I left Charlotte, I was nervous (read: 100% positive) that I wasn't going to be able to find any sushi in Freeport, so I was trying to squeeze it in at any possible meal. I was pleasantly surprised to find Fuji Sushi and Hibachi just down the road from my hotel. I was even more pleasantly surprised with the quality of their sushi - I have now tried at least 5 different rolls and each one has been divine. The cucumber salad is some of the best I have ever had: simple with julienne'd cucumbers, that tangy vinegar sauce, and sesame seeds. Below is a picture off of their Facebook page (I regrettably have forgotten to take pictures of my meals!) My favorite roll that I tried happened to be the first one that I tried: tiger roll - eel and avocado, topped with salmon, tuna, and whitefish. Second runner up? A roll not on the menu - summer roll: salmon, tuna, and whitefish topped with a spicy crab meat mix. Simply divine, and so happy that I found sushi in Freeport!

Cannova's is a locally owned pizza/Italian restaurant in Freeport (website has the correct menu, but an alternative location). I highly recommend the pizza - I have tried a pasta dish before (only once, for a reason) and I was not extremely satisfied. But perhaps they were having an off day, or my taste buds were having an off day, or I just ordered the wrong thing... Their pizza on the other hand is very good - they have a light, crispy crust and a sauce full of Italian flavor. Their mozzarella cheese is top notch quality. The first specialty pizza on their menu is the Cannova's Classic: diced tomatoes, fresh garlic, spinach, black olives, sweet basil, house cheese, and mozzarella. This is my favorite! I wish I had a picture, I really do... but trust me, this pizza is very good!

On to the spider bites (how do you segue between food and spider bites?), so this small corner of the cafeteria is infested with bugs. Apparently a spider got up in to my pants, and left me two gorgeous and itchy red marks. I am trying to ignore the fact that there are spiders living in my work area... but these love bites make it hard to forget! I'll be here until Friday afternoon - hopefully I can keep these little creepy crawlies away from me until then. I've started keeping my feet propped up on a chair, because in my (completely logical..) mind, this will keep the spiders at bay. You know the feeling when you think bugs are crawling all over you and they really aren't? Yeah. That's what I have going on.

And back to food - this central standard time is throwing me off! It's almost noon here and I am getting mighty hungry. Hopefully the catered food is not chicken (I just don't like chicken.) and I can have one less Subway purchase on my expense report...

Amtrak Adventures!

This weekend, my friend Casey and I took a train trip to Baltimore to visit our dear Meredith. What an adventure it was! I will try to break it down for you... I'm not sure how I can pack what we did over 72 hours into a blog post!

Friday: Got on the train in Cary. Train was 1.5 hours late getting into Baltimore. Woman sitting behind me sang to herself a good portion of the 9 hour train ride. Dropped off our stuff at Wolman Hall at JHU and cabbed it to the Orioles game. Stayed through the 8th inning. I got bored, because they were very obviously losing, and I wanted to see the end of the Wings game. Sadly, they lost. Gladly, I was drinking by this point (2 for $5 Bud Heavy's in the aluminum bottles). Gladly, we all continued drinking and bar hopped. Baltimore is a completely crazy town. The bars were pretty much empty by 11:30 pm because people were so hammered and had to go home/got kicked out of the bar. Luckily, we made it until 2. And I think we went to about 4 or 5 bars. Late night of choice: since there was no Jimmy John's, I had an absolutely delicious pastrami sandwich and I stood in line with all the other drunk people in Baltimore at the 24 hour deli/market. Mmmm. Fun night. Spent all day Saturday recovering.

Saturday: Recovery day. Woke up kind of early. Watched Weeds while everyone else slept. Went across the street to Tamber's and got brunch and pieced together the night before. We felt like we were all on Sex and the City. We got showers and looked pretty, then went down to the inner harbor. Ventured down there via bus, which was very interesting. So interesting, that we took a cab home instead. Drank Sangria and ate tapas overlooking the waterfront. Went shopping at the Inner Harbor retail "area" (heaven). It seems like all we did on Saturday was eat... Haha. We then took a cab to Mother's Federal Hill Grille and the three of us split an order of probably the most delicious crab dip I have ever had in my life, and we also split the "Heart Attack on a Plate" (Food Network Magazine's Best Burger of Maryland) which was a deep fried hamburger patty on a bun, stuffed with cheese. Delicious, but my health took a turn for the worse after that (I didn't have a heart attack- don't worry). My throat felt like I had razorblades in it! So I spent the rest of the night in bed.

Sunday: Woke up for church. Meredith stayed in the sick bed, while Casey and I went to church. We went to the First English Lutheran Church down the street. It was a nice service! Got brunch with Casey's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins. We then wandered towards Charm City Cakes and took pictures. Went to the Honfest. Google it. It was hillarious, but so hot! And we were all quite dehydrated. Honfest made us want to watch the movie "Hairspray." (Honfest basically poked at the women of Baltimore's yesteryear who wore big glasses and had the big beehive hair and said "hon" a lot). Hairspray turned into napfest. We all woke up, started talking about food, got hungry for dinner and went to sushi. Philidelphia roll. Yum! Gossiped and facebooked before we went to bed.

Today: Early morning. Rude cabbie on cell phone took us to the train station and didn't even help us with our luggage! Hung out in Baltimore's Penn Station and had a quick ride to DC. I could hardly even get my laptop out and watch an episode of Family Guy. We got to DC and got ripped off by a cab driver who took us to a fabulous breakfast spot on Capitol Hill, Pete's Diner and Carryout (good, ate a corned beef hash, egg, and cheese sandwich). We didn't have enough cash to cab it back to the train station, so we walked around DC with our luggage, which was easier than it sounds. We hit up the Library of Congress and the Capitol Building. By the time we got back to Union Station, we hopped on our train back to Cary. CRAZY people were on this train. Actually, just two crazy people. And maybe a few others, but that is a blog post in itself. I have several funny topics that I want to write about. Amtrak passengers will probably be one. Dolores will be the other. Mom and Dad picked me up from the train station (Thanks!) and we went to Woody's for happy hour. I ate too much, once again. Back on the diet tomorrow. Came home, hung out with Noah, Mike, Shelly, and Noah's stick collection for a while. Told my brother the story of the crazy Amtrak passengers and he cracked up for a good 10 minutes (I'm serious, its a blog post in itself!). Now I am here.

I'm gonna try and get to bed pretty early tonight since I have to work in the morning . Gotta get back to it! I'm looking forward to the Apex Leads Group though. It's a good group of people and I get to drink all the fountain Diet Coke that I can possibly drink.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about my adventures. How was everyone else's weekend?

(P.S. Photos to come!)