Travel

Chicago

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I’m finally back from España! I already know what you’re thinking: this is not what I signed up for. This blog was entitled “Chicago.” That’s right, 3 weeks ago I was in Chicago, and then I went to Spain. My poor Long Legs are dying from sitting in these small airplane seats. My immune system doesn’t love me either. Planes are not comfortable or sanitary places. But enough about air travel, let’s talk about my new favorite American city: the Windy One.

For some reason, I’ve always had a feeling I would want to live in Chicago. Some part of my #sweatzilla self really gravitates to a place that is frigid 75% of the year. Also, it’s still a large metropolitan area with public transportation, but the cost of living is drastically lower than New York. Considering the amount of weddings I attend in a year, I always figured I would end up in Chicago for a ceremony, or a bachelorette party, or engagement party, or other extraneous wedding-related event that has left me in debt. But somehow I was 30 years old and I had never been to Chicago! I was excited when my work decided to have their annual conference in the Chicago suburbs because it meant my flight would be comped. However, Skokie, IL is not exactly Chicago, so I twisted my coworker’s arm and convinced her to stay downtown a few days after the convention to hang out with me and explore the city. Full story: she has two kids and I think she thanked me for requiring  her to have a kid-less 2-day vaycay.

I won’t bore you with the specific details of my day-to-day activities, but I’ll give you the highlights. Starting with food, because duh.

FOOD

People say New York has amazing food, but Chicago is not far behind. We didn’t have much time (2 full days), but we tried to have one of everything. Obviously deep dish pizza came first. Everyone we asked had their own preference for their favorite deep dish place, but after 4 12-hour work days, we settled for the most famous place in Chicago that also happened to be across the street from our Air BNB: Giordano’s. #CheesePull photo on fleek. We all know Chicago is about hotdogs, too, so we couldn’t let our pizza be outshined by the classic Portillo’s hot dogs. And we were told by multiple people that a visit to Portillo’s would not be complete without a “cake shake.” Yes, this is what it sounds like: a chocolate shake with a legit piece of chocolate cake blended into it. It was so decadent that we weren’t able to finish it even sharing between two people. But do not fret, we walked a couple thousand more steps along Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile to make room in our stomachs for more food. The next stop was recommended to me by a friend from elementary school who happened to go to college in Chicago and is a huge foodie. I knew her recommendations could be trusted. She said, “go to XOCO, a Rick Bayless restaurant where they fry churros to order.” Say no more. O. M. G. these were so good. Plus, a little cup of chocolate to dip them in?! No words.

Dinner was also fantastic, and recommended to me by a local friend of mine. We went to La Sirena Clandestina, a Brazilian/latin place in a different, up-and-coming neighborhood of Chicago, Fulton Market. Google moved into the neighborhood a few years ago and brought a very Williamsburg-y market along with it. Along with the trendy techies come trendy chefs. And the food was FABULOUS. It helped that my friend knew the manager and they brought us PLATTERS of free steak and chorizo. I’m a sucker for anything free. But free and delicious? I was sold. Of course no dinner is complete without a post-dinner drink, so we went across the street to Swift & Sons and met up with another friend of mine who actually lives in New Jersey, but for some reason I hadn’t seen him in years. Nothing like a business trip hundreds of miles away to bring friends together!

HISTORY & INNOVATION

The coolest part of our business trip was a visit to 1871, a startup incubator and center for technology and entrepreneurship in Chicago. As part of our work convention, we took a field trip to their headquarters for a panel discussion on innovation and technology, and then a presentation from their CEO about the future. The company is named after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and about what happened afterward, when engineers, architects and inventors came together to build a new city. It was founded in 2012 to support Chicago’s digital startup community and it has become the hub for the city’s technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem. The actual office space is a huge, open-office 150,000 square foot facility. The technology of the office, even the water machines, are unparalleled. The talk from the CEO was enthralling, interesting, and a bit scary. He talked about how everything we know now is changing, and it’s changing quickly. I don’t really think of Chicago as a place of innovation or technology start-ups, but simply being in this space changed my mind.

The entire city’s history is based around the fire of 1871, but there is also a lot more. Coming off a trip to Spain, of course I realize America’s history is incredibly brief relative to any country in Europe, but it is still interesting to see history of my own country’s cities. After the work convention, my coworker and I went on a free walking tour in Chicago, where our guide was a spunky, awesome girl in her late 20’s with a passion for Chicago. She showed us sites all around “The Loop” including theaters, old department stores, street art and sculptures created specifically by artists for Chicago. She also showed us the beginning (and end!) of Historic Route 66. We ended our tour at The Bean, aka Cloud Gate, because of course, and she taught us how it was supposed to look like a drop of mercury. Makes sense!

SEGWAYS

Segway everywhere!! There’s only one thing I love more than Segways: introducing other people to my love of Segways. I forced my coworker to take a Segway tour because I found an awesome deal on Groupon. She loved it! Who wouldn’t?! We went on a 2-hour tour of downtown Chicago, where we rode past Soldier Field and learned about its history as a National Historic landmark, we went by the Shedd Aquarium and learned about the oldest captive fish, 90-Something-Year-Old Granddad, who died last year, and we went by the Field Museum. Our tour guide was awesome, and he told us about the more than 8,000 acres of public parks (more than 8% of the city!). But the best part of a Segway tour is always the Segways. I love those things. I obviously did not follow our guide’s instructions and took plenty of selfies/selfie videos while in motion (big no-no). I also gave at least 10 high fives to pedestrians as I rolled by. I can’t wait for my next Segway opportunity! And our guide was fab at photo-taking. Check it out below, #NoFilter!

Chicago was a slamming success, but I had to go home to do laundry and prepare for Spain. #FirstWorldProblems. More about that trip later!

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Travel

Seattle and Vancouver

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I have been neglecting you guys!! My loyal blog-readers. Well I am back, hopefully with a vengeance. Things in my life have been crazy recently, between realizing we couldn’t afford the crazy rent increase for our apartment, trying to find an apartment within 2 weeks’ time, applying for an apartment… ok, this whole apartment business deserves its own blog post, which is coming soon.

Anyway, I’ve been busy. And one of the reasons is because I’ve been gallivanting around the west coast of the US and Canada with my best friend. I know, I know, play the world’s smallest violin for me. Too bad, so sad.

I had a blast. I can’t share all of the details from my trip on here because, quite frankly, you don’t want to read them. But I will give a highlights reel in bullet-point form, because lists are easier to read, and hopefully this way you don’t skim through all of my hard, carpal-tunnel-inducing work on LongLegsBigCity.

  • Flight actually left on time. WHAT? Crazy. Yes, this requires its own bullet point. I highly recommend JetBlue to absolutely anyone. Also, their points NEVER EXPIRE. And they have free wifi! And legroom! This trip was off to a great start.
  • Late night happy hour at Toulouse Petit. Their menu touts that it was rated 5th Greatest Restaurant in the USA by TripAdvisor. It was good but that is very aggressive.
  • First Day: Food tour of Pike’s Place Market. Highly recommend, yet again. I’d been to Pike’s Place before, but I learned so much history from the tour guide! Also, we got to eat at 6 different places (Daily Dozen Doughnut Co., Elleno’s Greek Yogurt, Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, Pike Place Chowder, Chukar Cherries, Piroshky Piroshky AND Etta’s Seafood). How could that be bad??
  • Drove to Vancouver. Holy hell that took a long time. Who knew that border-crossing lines took long than Disneyworld pre-fast-pass? We arrived 2 hours later than planned. Thank goodness we bought $30 in gas station snacks for the 3-hour (turned 5-hour) drive.
  • Our air BnB was awesome!! It was an adventure trying to get the keys though. There was a fire exit involved. Also, the way the host gave us the keys… he just left the door propped open? For how long, no one knows. I made my friend come with me and check every closet and shower (there were 2.5 bathrooms!) for a hiding serial killer. Spoiler Alert: there were no serial killers.
  • The Parking pass our Air Bnb guy gave us for the parking garage (one of the reasons we picked this air bnb) clearly stated 6-hour-parking all over it. Also, the spots in the garage said that. We were worried all weekend that we would be towed. Air bnb man did not speak English very well in his messages and his response “Sure! 😊” to our question “The parking pass says 6 hours. Can we park there overnight? Will we get towed?” did not help. Spoiler Alert #2: we were not towed. PHEW!
  • Discovered 2 liquor stores within 3 blocks walking distance. Purchased booze at said liquor stores. This also came in handy later.
  • Hooked up to the wifi, googled best dinner places. Found a place called Gringo. The reviews for the food were FAMAZING, and they had drinks called “White Girl W@$sted” and “Poor Man’s Sangria.” We knew we had to go. The wait was 45 minutes AND it was raining. But after 20 minutes, we were tipped off that we could go inside and take tequila shots while we waited. Game changed. Food was AMAZING (especially after the tequila shots).
  • Day 2: Hit the free gym in the condo complex first to sweat out some tequila. Works every time. Pro Tip: Running on a treadmill with a hangover is bad in every country. Even with the lights dimmed.
  • It stopped raining! Tried to go on a walking tour of Vancouver. Couldn’t find the fountain meeting place. Asked inside a museum. Was informed that the plaza was “re-landscaped” aka paved over, and there was no fountain anymore. Still couldn’t find the walking tour. Did come across a man cleaning a public restroom. He found a Livestrong Bracelet in the toilet. Remember those? We gave up on the walking tour.
  • We decided to instead give ourselves a walking tour on our way to brunch. Great compromise. We walked around downtown and then ended up at Lamplighter Pub for a Bluegrass Brunch. It was amazing because they served poutine and did a bluegrass version of Hit Me Baby One More Time. It was already a great day.
  • We walked alllll the way to Granville Market mostly because we had time, and it had stopped raining. Also, because I had just eaten poutine. Granville was adorable. Lots of food booths, but after our 80-minute walk we were tired.
  • We took a cab back to our condo. I LEFT MY CELL PHONE IN THE CAB. Uber doesn’t exist in Vancouver, so we had no way to track it. Of course my cellular data was off because I was in Canada so I couldn’t call it. I tried to track down the cab from my credit card charge, but it wasn’t even pending yet. I found a Parking Police Person. I asked her what to do. She told me to try and remember what color the cab was, and find the company to call based on that color. Unfortunately, I thought it was blue and my best friend thought it was yellow. Also, I didn’t have a phone to call a company. My best friend google-image-searched Vancouver cabs, and was CONVINCED it was from a company called Black Top Cabs based on the photos. I scheduled a cab by using their website. Two minutes later, a cab pulled up, and it looked just like the one we were in… but it wasn’t. I asked the driver to call dispatch and ask about a cab coming from Granville where the customer left a phone. Sure enough I hear someone over the radio say “Yep, I’ve got it.” (WTF!?). The dispatch said “Either you can go get it or he can bring it to you but he may charge a $15 delivery charge” (aka like $12 American). I am not an idiot so I said PLEASE PLEASE BRING IT. I prepared to wait on the street for a while. Less than 3 minutes later, the guy pulled up with my phone. I handed him $20 American, and he seemed thrilled. It worked out for both of us. Cue the 3-minute walk to the liquor store because I REALLY needed it at that point.
  • Pre-drinking at the condo. Planning out Spain girls’ trip for May. (SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!) Googled “Best Indian Food in Vancouver.” Discovered Salam Bombay. So. Delicious.
  • We wanted to go dancing and failed miserably the night before, so we tried harder the second night. We even waited in a non-moving line at a club. We eventually gave up and started wandering looking for a bar. We came across Relish The Pub. We saw a woman dancing like crazy inside. Just one woman. She was a bodybuilder. She did bodybuilding poses every 2 minutes within her dance marathon. We knew it was up to us to join the party. They had an amazing DJ who played all of our requests. We danced for 3 hours straight. We got 14,000 steps after midnight. My Fitbit registered more than 2 hours of “aerobic activity.”
  • At one point in the night, my friend pointed to the floor and said “look.” I looked. It was $100!!! In American money, nonetheless. She told me later she thought it was $1! This paid for our next night.
  • Late night shawarma.
  • Meaning well, we set the alarm to go to the gym. It didn’t happen. I checked my fitbit. Remembered the 14,000 steps after midnight. Decided it was ok.
  • Drove back toward Seattle. Both of us had Global Entry so we got to drive in the fastpass Nexus Lane. It saved us at least an hour at the border!
  • We stopped for a stretch break and walk at Deception Pass. Photos do not do it justice. SO. BEAUTIFUL.
  • Lunch in La Conner, WA at Santo Coyote. We had amazing (and inexpensive) food this whole trip.
  • Relaxed at my bff’s house for a quick bit, while her psycho-energetic-puppy jumped all over us. Then we googled “Best Ice Cream in Seattle.” I can’t help myself! #30Years30IceCreams will stay with me forever. We met up with one of her friends at Kurt Farm Shop, where we had cheese ice cream, and many other unique and delicious flavors. It left a weird film on the roof of my mouth, but besides that, it was pretty darn good.
  • Even with this bullet list, is this blog getting long? I think it is. I’ll try to wrap up. We did so many things!!
  • Day 4: MLK Day. Hike up Little Si with Charlie (the girl puppy with a boy name). She was happy we brought her. The views were amazing! A totally clear day in January in Seattle. Complete miracle.
  • I met my best friend’s boyfriend at dinner. We went to Tai Tung, which is famous for being Bruce Lee’s favorite restaurant. He even has a table dedicated to him. But more importantly, I got to meet my BFF’s bf. This is important because I have a history of hating her boyfriends. I know hate is a strong word, but it’s entirely appropriate here. Anyway, I actually liked this one! MIRACLE. Also, he picked up the tab. Doesn’t hurt. We made him take home the leftovers.
  • Went to VERY divey dive bar called Joe’s. VERY. Divey. Cash only. They don’t even have a website for me to link. I was introduced to pull-tabs. We won $4!! We spent $20… but still. All drinks paid for by our found Benjamin.
  • Late night 2nd Dinner at Ba Bar. Vietnamese. Pho. Moscow Mules at Late Night Happy Hour price. Who could ask for more?
  • Day 5: SEGWAY TOUR OF SEATTLE!! Y’all know I love to Segway. The tour guide kind of sucked, but Segway-ing is so fun it didn’t even matter. Plus, we got a Groupon! Plus, it wasn’t raining! PLUS, it was called Magic Carpet Glide. It couldn’t be bad.
  • Lunch at Ivar’s. Fish and Chips. So. Good. Plus the view was amazing. It still wasn’t raining!
  • Stopped at Tiffany’s. Had to make sure my BFF knows the kind of ring I want. You never know, right? 😉 LOL
  • Spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching Sex & the City DVD’s to round out a perfect trip.
  • My flight back to NYC left EARLY! JETBLUE FTW. 21 days ‘til my next flight. Also JetBlue because I am now a loyal customer.
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Travel

Washington, D.C.

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Strap in, this post is a doozy. Last weekend I traveled to Virginia for my cousin’s wedding, and I had a jam-packed 3 days in the Greater Washington D.C. area. I promise to travel to further and more interesting places soon, but for now, this will have to do for the blog.

I arrived on Thursday night, and luckily, my brother, a new DC resident, picked me up from the train station. Unluckily, he was pulled over by the cops on the way, who said that it was illegal to drive through a yellow light. What?! Isn’t that what yellows are for? Anyway, a bit delayed, we changed and went to dinner with his Home Plate Family. What is Home Plate? It’s basically the coolest invention ever, founded and run by the WashU Chancellor’s wife, Risa Zwerling Wrighton. If out of town students at WashU miss home-cooked meals and dinnertime, they can sign up for this program and get matched with a family. My brother’s “family” was even featured on the WashU website 5 years ago! Since my brother was a WashU student for 7 years (8 if you include the gap year), he basically grew up with his “family.” Therefore, we all grew up with them! I have been hearing about my brother’s second mom for almost a decade. He has been attending all of the kids’ recitals, ceremonies, and graduations for years and his “mom” is my favorite part of our family group texts! Anyway, we had a delicious dinner at Lavagna, where I heard about their time at the Newseum, which I absolutely must go to the next time I’m in DC.

After dinner, I met up with a friend from middle/high school, who I hadn’t seen in 3 years. We had a drink and talked for a while, until we realized it was getting late and now we are real adults with jobs and it was a work night. LAME.

The next morning, my brother and his gf and I woke up and went to my brother’s favorite bagel place, Bullfrog Bagels. It was ok, but nothing compared to NYC bagels (don’t tell him I said that). I’m spoiled. After barely digesting, we drove out to Arlington to work out at Orangetheory Fitness with my best friend from college. She is the head trainer for the region, and she definitely gave us a workout! My brother and I wore heartrate monitors so we could compete with each other on the screens. More about the actual workout later, I’ll do a full review. Suffice it to say, we left completely drenched in sweat, and she played one of my fav weekend ramp-up songs, Hello Friday by Jason Derulo and Flo Rida. I promptly added it to all of my playlists (FOLLOW ME ON SPOTIFY!). We took about 100 pictures , some below, some saved for my OTF blog review, then we went home to shower. The afternoon was STEAMY hot. We ate Ethiopian food, then had a few sake bombs to stave off heat exhaustion, as one does. The boomerangs were pretty epic.

We finished packing and headed to the suburb of Reston, VA, where the rest of the wedding weekend popped off. Something to know about my family: we don’t see each other often, but when we do, we have a BLAST! We started Beth and Kenny’s wedding weekend with hors d’ouvres and drinks at American Tap Room, which conveniently was a 3 minute walk from the hotel #DrinksOnDrinksOnDrinks. My uncle put together a slideshow and I had three cameos in it (#winning). I only cried three times. Ok, maybe four. I’m such a sucker for a slideshow! I got to mingle with all of my family, meet some of Kenny’s family for the first time (shoutout to my dance partner Shawna!) and better yet, I got to introduce my mom to the Moscow Mule. Her life is forever changed. We went to Thai food after, because duh, never enough food, and then we went back to the hotel.

 

Meanwhile, my favorite emoji-bf STILL had not arrived! When I got back to the hotel, I found out his flight had been delayed 4 times, then canceled, after he had already been on the plane for an hour! Ultimately, he made it to the hotel by 7 am the next day, without his bag. He took a 3 am Amtrak and managed to piece together a wedding outfit from a tux shirt, a blazer he keeps in his office, and some too-tight slacks (photos below). Don’t worry, we are currently in negotiations for some compensation from Delta. Putting my ESQ. to good use.

Since the bf had barely arrived by the time we were supposed to leave for our Segway tour, I subbed in my brother’s girlfriend for the tour, instead. We had some epic Metro issues; I guess NYC isn’t alone in their #publictransitproblems. But the good news is, we made a new friend on the Metro who we shared an Uber with. Renee, are you out there somewhere? I should have gotten your contact info! Anyway, we embarked on my longest Segway Tour to date, by Bike and Roll DC. We got a Groupon (major tip here for Segway tours), and it was so much fun! Our tour guide Jen was so awesome, I made sure to write a review on Groupon and Trip Advisor. Also, it came with free popsicles and water. We rolled around DC for 2.5 hours with a family from Copenhagen, learning awesome little-known facts and taking a million photos. Did you know, legend has it that the 50 US flags around the Washington Monument were originally supposed to be state flags but the states couldn’t agree on which would be closest to the White House so they are all US flags instead? Did you know that Truman barely got to live in the White House because when he tried to move in, his piano broke through the rotting floor boards? He had to move out while they gutted the whole thing. Some say they approved the plans to add the Truman Balcony (now one of the most-noticeable things on the facade) to commemorate him and make up for the fact that he could barely live there.

After the awesome Segway tour, we headed back to the hotel for a quick dip in the pool, then got ready for the wedding! We took the shuttle bus to the Stone Tower Winery, which was even prettier than the photos. Really, the pictures do not do it justice. And the sunset… woah. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. I was scared it would be blazing hot (outside wedding in July? NO THANKS), but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There was a nice breeze, they had a table with lemon-infused water and champagne to the side of the ceremony, and instead of classic programs, they had the information printed on little fans. Very cute touch.

My cousin looked absolutely amazing, not that I’m biased or anything 😉 She was walked down the aisle by her mom and dad, which I always find sweet. They asked for no phones out during the ceremony, so no photos of that. Also, they wrote their own vows, which is so much more personal. I was listening intently since I was a rule-follower and had put away my phone. I only cried two more times. Okay, three. The officiant was actually their backup officiant, after a particularly gruesome kickball accident, and he totally killed it. Short, sweet, funny, and he could pronounce both of their names! (Trust, me that is not always the case). Both bride and groom added One Direction lyrics to their vows, which was hilarious and amazing and unplanned. They each broke individual glasses, which was a new tradition I had not seen before, but I liked the concept of not just having the guy do it.

The reception was so much fun. The dance floor was poppin’ (extra shoutout to my 88-year-old grandmother who never left the dance floor), there were glow sticks, there was an open bar, and an outdoor patio if you needed a break from the music. The hora was fun, minus a minor chandelier-tiara-head incident, and the toasts were hilarious. I got to sit with my cousins and next to my aunt and uncle. The craziest thing that happened all night: someone from the same floor of my college dorm, freshman year, 12 years ago, recognized me! She is married to a friend of the groom. Craziest small world ever. Things like that do not happen when you go to a school with over 50,000 students. It was so great to see you, Anna!

The real star of the reception was the fire pit and the DIY s’mores. With Reese’s cups! WHAT!? It was amazing. My emoji-bf informed me that since he was an Eagle Scout, I need not show him how to roast a marshmallow. Excusez-moi. We had a sparkler sendoff for the bride and groom, which was a super fun ending to a great night.

Lessons Learned:

  • I have too many friends in DC and I need to visit more often (next time Brittany/Davon/Tahon/Kristina!)
  • Orangetheory will leave me sore for days (ok, already knew that).
  • Segways are amazing (I knew that too).
  • I really like my brother’s gf (don’t screw this up, bro!)
  • I need to get together with my extended family more often.
  • Weddings in July are not always as hot as you’d fear, with enough champagne.
  • The Gator Nation is Everywhere!
  • I need to write shorter blog posts.
Family Photo! One of these things is not like the other hahahha
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