Fantastic Fun

another week of freedom.... I never quite know what to do with myself and this free alone time during the day. You'd think being in Chicago and all, my options are endless right... true as that may be, I never seem to do anything too exciting or different.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the weather this week! Tuesday I went to the beach and literally just sat down and felt instant happiness. Warm weather is such an upper! It was soooo good to just sit in the warm sun and listen to the water (and a well selected ipod playlist) and see all the other happy people and watch the dogs fetching in the lake and seeing the blooming flowers and ... man, I was high on life! :)

Wednesday was also an extremely happy day! Both Dan and Mark (Kentucky friends from España) came up to Chicago! We had really good tickets to the Cubs game (they won!) and we ate at a restaurant with the open wall so it was almost like we were eating on the sidewalk. :) Thats another thing I love about this weather; all the bars and restaurants have large windows or faux walls that open up to let it in. So, clad in my new #16 Ramirez T, we enjoyed the weather while it lasted and tried to keep the warmth at the game as well. Wrigley is a pretty cool field. It is the second oldest major league stadium in use today (1914, two years Fenway's junior). Seeing the older style score board was fun, and not having a big screen was weird and at times comical with the commercials they tried to make work on a smaller scale. I wish the ivy wall had actually been green. They were playing the Cincinnatti Reds, we won 12-3! Funny thing during the game, something like the 8th inning, the Reds scored a homer over right field into the crowd. Fans always throw opposing teams homerun balls back onto the field right... well this time it seemed to take a bit of time for that ball to come back out [in the words of one of the Bakers: no one is stupid enough to throw back a game ball, they bring extras to throw back] so it seemed to me that someone else was taking care of the tradition by helping out a fellow fan throwing their extra ball. At the same moment someone else had the same idea so now two balls were thrown back for this one homer. Then a sudden shower of balls came flying from the stands! I think we counted up to 15, and they didn't all end up coming from the same location even which made it even better. It held up the game a bit and I dont really think the players appreciated it but I think the fans did and thats all that matters right :)

Thursday I cleaned our apartment, vacuumed and all, and did a little shopping in order to bide the time when the Bakers were done with their school activities. I met them at their hotel which is south 7 stops on the El, we were going to go out to pizza with the other Asbury kids that were also there (I think there were around 15 of us maybe?!). They didn't say exactly where we were going but we took off walking... after some time we crossed the river... some time later, we were still walking! We had almost walked all the way back to my apt in order to eat at Gino's. I did not wear the proper shoes for this trek and now have to deal with the blisters from that decision but it was worth it! :) I was told two pieces of this pizza was going to be enough and just to spite that I vowed to eat 2.5. Sadly, I wasn't able to! Mark and Dan ate three each and I ate the other 2 of the pizza we shared. It was really good though, holy filling, but really good. The walls of this place were covered in writing. I found our names all in one spot but this is the best pic we got :) It says Bre near me (which is what those guys call me, along with everyone else from Spain) and Mark is by him, and Dan is near Mark's arm but he wouldn't get in the picture. After we were done eating we worked off all those calories by walking the entire distance back once again. It was a fun walk though, we made a few pit stops and had a lot of laughs. Back at the hotel we played Apples to Apples in the largest group I've ever played with and of course had some more laughs. Another thing that was the source of much humor was a shocker pen that Dan had. It is so funny to try to convince people to push the button and watch their reactions! Even once people knew about it they still react, the pen gets thrown or they merely jolt with shock but either way, hilarious :)

It was SO good to see those boys again! They are so fun to be around, I dont think I spend much time with them not laughing! It was an excellent break in my almost getting monotonous days of too much freedom!! Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and they had to get back to KY...