34 posts tagged “travel”
On Monday, Jason, Rob and I went to the MFA. It was really nice. You couldn't photograph any of the paintings, so I just took a few pictures of non-paintings.
The MFA has a large section of Egyptian art. I was determined to find a cat statue, since I think my cat, Sweeney, looks like an Egyptian kitty.
I went to Boston for the tenth annual Boston Theatre Marathon. I was in town May 9-12. I was pretty lazy taking photos this time around. Plus, this was my fourth time in Boston, so I already have a lot of pictures from there. Anyway, here are photos from the 9th and 10th (sorry that the narrative is all disjointed):
I stayed with my friend, Jason. While we were driving to his house, we stopped at Walden Pond.
Later that evening, Jason carved a Cyclops squash:
The next morning, I helped with some yard work. I chopped down 1-1/2 10-feet-tall rose bushes in the front of the house:
Then, we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum:
After that, we walked around the city to find a place to eat. Along the way, we took this picture.
Walking back to the car, we walked through a park and saw this flower heart someone had made.
More later ...
Sunday, Rob and I took the streetcar to Loyola University New Orleans just to walk around.
EDIT: Here's more info on the statue.
On Saturday, Rob and I went walking along Rue Royal (Royal Street) to check out the antique shops and art galleries. At one point, we even stumbled onto a gallery party, and got free wine and appetizers in the middle of the day. Score!
I saw this graffiti in the bar's bathroom. I snapped a photo of it, and then realized Johanna was two stalls away and was probably wondering why I was taking flash photos in the bathroom. I had to explain later.
New Orleans is such an amazing city, and has been through such a rough time. I know the re-building still has a long way to go, but New Orleans residents really love their city, and they're bringing it back to life.
I didn't post any celeb house pictures, cuz I felt like that would be an invasion of privacy, but above is a "painted lady" restored to look like it originally did.
We also saw the house where Anne Rice used to live, though she's since moved to San Diego.
P.S. I know Brangelina's address!
Rob had a trade show in New Orleans, so he tacked on a few extra days, I flew down, and we had a little vacation.
When I checked into our first hotel, Rob was still at his show, so I decided to amuse myself by walking along Bourbon Street. I'd been to New Orleans before, but I still experienced a little culture shock. Bourbon Street is so loud, and colorful, and there are SO many bars and pizza places and tourist shops, and porn, and strip clubs. My head was spinning. I stopped in a tourist shop to buy some postcards, and then randomly chose a pizza-by-the-slice place to get a snack.
After eating a slice of pizza and drinking a Red Bull, I headed back to the hotel. On my way, I passed a courtyard my mom, Rob and I had stopped in on our last trip to NOLA. The same old-time jazz band was playing, which was really fortuitous, because I'd wished I'd bought one of their CDs. I stopped to listen to them play for a while, and when the band paused to let a marching jazz group pass by, I walked up to the front and asked the lead singer if I could buy a CD. We got to talking and he asked where I was from, and when I told him, he asked if he could play, "Chicago" for me. I was flattered. The band played "Chicago" as promised and then took a break. The singer came over to sit with me and we chatted some more. I asked how long he'd lived in New Orleans, etc. At one point, he told me to tell Rob that he's a lucky man. Haha! (I did.) I left with a promise to come back and see him, but unfortunately we ran out of time, and I never did. :(
For those of you who don't know, I was laid off right after Christmas. My entire department was dissolved due to a business merger, and we found out we were losing our jobs about two weeks before Christmas.
I felt a range of emotions then -- disappointed, sad, angry, excited, happy. This marks the second time in my short professional career that I've been laid off. But truth be told, I didn't really like my last job and was planning to leave after a year, anyway.
I've decided to take this opportunity to look for jobs in Boston, because I have grown very restless and tired of Chicago. I moved here over 7 years ago to attend college and didn't picture myself sticking around this long.
Looking for jobs in a city I where I don't live has been hard, but I managed to schedule two interviews and a "networking" meeting for this Thursday and Friday. I was supposed to leave for Boston today.
A huge storm was supposed to hit Chicago last night, but when I woke up everything looked okay. I checked my flight status twice this morning. On time. Rob picked me up on his way to work and drove me to O'Hare. My confirmation email said I was flying US Airways, but through some marketing deal I don't understand, United was actually operating the flight. So, I got to Terminal Two, only to have to take the tram to Terminal One. I checked my ridiculously heavy bag (how do people backpack around Europe? HOW? How do you fit everything you own into a backpack?), ate a bad, over-priced sandwich at Quiznos at 10:00 in the morning, and went to my gate. Flight was still listed as on time. I read Time Magazine for a while, and then realized we should've been boarding. I went to the desk and discovered my flight to Rochester had been delayed, and now I've missed my connection to Boston.
Jeff, the man at the desk, was very nice and helped to lay out my options for me. 1) I could fly to Manchester, NH and take two shuttle buses into Boston. The catch is, my baggage was already on the plane headed to Rochester. The thought of potentially spending the next four days in Boston with no clean panties didn't really appeal to me, so after calling Rob and my business contacts and thinking it over, I decided to take the flight credit United/US Airways offered me and go home.
I went to baggage claim to see if they could pull my suitcase from the Rochester plane, which had been delayed about 4 hours at this point and was still on the ground. They put in my request and told me to wait 20 minutes. After waiting an hour and a half, I found another baggage claim worker and told him my story. This sweet, lovely man was so upset that I'd waited an hour and a half that he personally went to get my suitcase and brought it to me. I seriously think he was an Angel sent to me from Jesus. He wheeled my suitcase to my side and when I looked around, he'd gone.
Hauling my 50-lb bag, and carrying my backpack (holding my dress suit and a borrowed laptop) and my purse, I made my way to the el. I got off at the Irving Park blue line stop and stepped off the subway into a sleeting, freezing mess. I then lugged my stuff down a flooded stairwell and caught the Irving Park 80 bus. After swiping my card several times before it would work, I sat down next to an elderly lady who proceeded to tell me about playing bingo. Normally this sort of thing would irritate me, but lately I've been so starved for human contact that I enjoyed the conversation.
I got off at Clark Street, and figured I deserved to treat myself at this point, so I hailed a cab. While throwing my baggage into the trunk, I stepped in a huge puddle, which soaked through my boots. Allow me to point out that my boots were purchased from Payless and are at least 5 years old. This morning, I stuck plastic grocery bags inside of them to keep my feet from getting wet. I remembered us doing this as kids and thought, my God, my family is so white trash. I told Rob about this and he said they did the same thing when he was young, so I feel slightly better, but still, what has my life become?
Anyway, I am home now. So far, I've consumed chocolate ice cream and a rum-and-coke, and am waiting for a Dominos pizza to get here. I figure I'm unemployed, so I might as well be FAT AND DRUNK to top it off.
I am glad the airline is refunding my full ticket, though I lost $180 on my hotel room because I booked it through Priceline and named my own price, which means, NO REFUND. I also spent $8.47 on a horrible sandwich at O'Hare, $5 on Time Magazine, and $10 on a cab ride (I tipped well). This has been a really expensive non-trip. I am so bored and depressed that I wish I could visit my family or my friend Erica in Minnesota, but I am broke and the weather is terrible.
I feel I am at a really difficult crossroads right now. I want to move, for some hard-to-explain reason, but it'll be tough to leave behind my life in Chicago. It's also been really hard to hunt for jobs in another city. To make matters worse, Boston is a zillion times more expensive than Chicago, so I don't know how I'll afford living there.
I am proud of the life I've built so far. I live by myself, in a nice apartment, in a cool neighborhood, and I own a car (still making payments). And this not-working thing has me scared that I'll lose it all.
I am so grateful for the support of my friends and family. I also think that maybe it's time to start looking for temp employment, so I can earn some cash and visit Boston when the weather is nicer.
P.S. I have photos for this post, but my stupid computer won't let me upload them.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon after missing our first flight (the airline's fault, not ours) and having to spend 7 hours at O'Hare. Not fun. At all. But luckily, we were able to get on another flight. We went out for a nice dinner with Rob's sister and her fiance, and then went to bed.
Also, I was excited because shortly after we arrived, Monica informed us that one of their dogs had had puppies to weeks prior to our visit. They were sooooo cute! I fell in love with the pick of the litter, who was named Max.
Sunday was Lisa's wedding. It was held at a public park. We set off after Monica (Rob's sister) and Bill (her fiance) cooked us a HUGE breakfast.
After we played with the dogs, Monica and Bill took us on a tour of their property and let us play with their lawn equipment. They own several acres.
