I went, I ate, I conquered

Two weeks ago, I went to Chicago for a pretend summer vacation.  It was my last little escape to visit my friend Christine before starting my spectacular new job.  But it was short. I flew out Friday afternoon and flew home Sunday morning. 

Since starting at America's Promise Alliance, I have had no brain power to do anything post work other than therapy shop, eat and sleep.  It's ok. I've found simple-hood quite enjoyable. But, I feel like I'm so far behind in life since the new job began.  I haven't even been good at keeping up with my emailing.  Blog reading? Not so much.  I am far behind on my reading. I have no idea what's going on in my friends' lives and especially miss my daily updates on Gary and Elaine from Catalog Living.  The fact that no pictures load on my Google Reader at work is crippling my efforts to get back on track.  Its tragic, really.

At the very least, I wanted to take this opportunity to post some pictures from my Chitown trip.  I've uploaded all of my pictures to Picasa if you're not interested in the abridged version below.

The weather? Perfectly fantastic. Crisp, bold, blue skies.  The food? Expectedly comforting and satisfying.  The adventures? Quick and jam-packed. The experience?  Memorable! My camera?! Well you needn't ask. See for yourself below!

A beautiful stuffed pizza from Edwardo's.  This is the fifth deep dish pizza place I've tried in the city and it was delicious. We picked this up after an open-bar event that we attended in our work out clothes. It's OK. I'm not out trying to win friends or anything. What follows is a snippet of the activity in the cab ride home with Edwardo's in hand.

And then we devoured...only half of it. We had already eaten some free appetizers and cupcakes at the bar. It turned out to be a wise choice, since that left me a quality breakfast option the next two days. Nothing beats cold, deep dish pizza!

Our baby was stuffed with peppers, onions and mushrooms. MMmmmm. The next morning, after a cold piece of pizza, we headed to a remarkable brunch spot in Lincoln Park called Toast.  We had a Groupon for that place, so we felt no shame in ordering a variety of delicious items.

(This photo is a little fuzzy since I resized it a few times and did some other careless things. Judge me, not my camera!) After scouring the menu, we chose to feast on the following:

Ladies and gentlemen, the Pesto Scramble with spinach, bacon and Gruyere accompanied by spiced breakfast potatoes.

May I introduce you to the Nutella Crepe with crushed walnuts?  Yes...you're welcome.

And here we have two modest, but not unspoken Veggie Sausage patties.  Spicy and flavorful!

Last, but by no means least, the Stuffed French Toast Trio.  Where nutella stuffed brioche meets strawberry puree stuffed brioche and decides to do business with mascarpone stuffed brioche. Can you think of anything better? I can't! 

Upon taking our order, the waiter politely came back and cleared the other extraneous items from our table citing that there might be a logistical problem fitting all of the plates of food we ordered.  Then upon delivering the plates, he said "Here you go, and GOOD LUCK!"

Now, this was one of my shortest trips to the Windy City in nearly five years.  But for some reason, I feel like Christine and I accomplished just as much, if not more. Maybe it was the stronger sense of urgency that carried us to victory. I plan to post another entry that covers the remainder of the trip. And I hope to get my act together and not wait another few weeks to do so!