Profiel van MichaelMichael S. CollierFoto'sWeblogLijstenMeer  |  Extra Help |
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13 november Chicago TripSonja and I went to Chicago this past weekend. We went there my cousin, his wife, and their son. The trip was to support the Buckeyes in their game against Northwestern in Evanston. We had an absolute blast!!
We arrived at our hotel in Schaumburg, IL (a suburb of Chicago) late on Thursday evening. On Friday morning we took the train into Chicago. We had breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s restaurant. It is a great little restaurant in Chicago a few blocks from Union Station. After breakfast we took a cab ride to Shedd Aquarium. Shedd Aquarium is a really nice, and big, aquarium. We didn’t see it all, but still saw a lot of really cool looking fish. After Shedd, we walked over to Solider Field – the home of the Chicago Bears. I’m not a Bear’s fan, but the stadium is still pretty historic, so I wanted to see it. A few minutes there, and we were back in a cab for a short ride to Chicago’s art institute. It is huge!! I don’t really get into art that much, but there were still some pretty cool looking paintings there. I really don’t understand contemporary “art”. For instance, there was a painting on a wall that was a canvas covered in black paint. That’s art? I mean, come on, I could do that! Perhaps I could come up with a, get this, canvas covered in all white paint. Maybe a black and white painting? After seeing all that art, we were starved! So, since we were in Chicago, naturally, pizza was in order. We ate pizza at Giordano’s. It was fabulous deep-dish pizza! I had two slices and was totally stuffed. I’m full!!!! During dinner it started to rain pretty good, and it just kept raining. We found a cab back to Union Station and took a train back to a stop close to the hotel. At the end of the day, we were exhausted, but still full! Saturday was game day!! For breakfast we had some very excellent pancakes at a place near the hotel. This was a great way to fill up, again, before a long day of cheering for the Buckeyes. After breakfast, my cousin Keith and I drove to Northwestern’s campus in Evanston. We could tell Northwestern is not used to the onslaught of fans that comes with a Buckeye roadgame. There was little traffic control on Northwestern’s campus. No parking lots were closed, or marked as full, when they were full. Instead, we just kept driving into parking lot after parking lot searching for spaces. We eventually found one a mile or two away from the football stadium. On the plus side, there was a shuttle bus that took us directly to the stadium. That saved us a cold walk! The game was great, if you were an OSU fan. The game was a blowout – OSU won 54-10. After the game we were going to take the shuttle bus back to the parking lot, but the line was extremely long and moving slowly. Again, Northwestern had little crowd control to direct people to the proper bus. We waited around the stadium for a while, and finally decided to walk back to the parking lot. At least we kept warm walking. We got back to the car and drove back to the hotel in Schaumburg. Dinner on Saturday evening was, again, pizza. This time we stuffed ourselves at Lou Manalti’s. Lou’s had great pizza. I think I liked Giordano’s pizza a little better. Giordano’s was more of a deep dish pizza, and the sauce was more tomato tasting. But, both were fabulous. In fact, I bought 4 frozen pizzas to take home with me!
On Sunday morning we headed out. On our way back to Columbus we stopped at Sonja’s grandfather’s church. He is a pastor at the church. After church we continued our long, long drive back to Columbus.
I love these bi-yearly trips to Chicago. It is always a lot of fun. We get to see a OSU football game and eat some great food. I'll post a few of my favorite pictures to my photo gallery here. <update> I posted more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/buckeye01/tags/chicagonovember2006/. </update>
Go Bucks!!! 17 augustus Vegas!!Last week I spent 4 wonderful days in Las Vegas with 5 of my best friends. It was a great trip. I had so much fun!!! The first day there, Wednesday, was kind of surreal. Just seeing all the magnificent casinos in person that I see on TV was just great. We had a very nice dinner at an Italian restaurant at the Canal Shops at the Venetian. I had some type of very tasty chicken dish. For dessert I had a chocolate mousse with raspberry and kiwi topping. It was so good!! After dinner we walked around for a while. Later that night, Andrew and I ended up at the Pussycat Dolls Lounge inside Ceasers Palace. The PCD Lounge was pretty cool. It is connected to Pure nightclub, but Pure was not open that night.
Thursday morning a few of us had brunch at Balley's buffet. We ate so much!! The buffet was pretty nice. It wasn't as massive as the buffet at Wynn (we ate there on Saturday morning). In the afternoon we all went to The Gun Store. We rode to The Gun Store in a stretched SUV limo. That was kind of cool too. Once at The Gun Store, I shot an M-16 and an AR-15. Other than a few shots with a shotgun in high school gym class, I had never shot a gun before. So, this was quite an experience for me! Once back at our hotel, The Flamingo, we lounged around the pool for a while. The Flamingo's pool was very large, but way too crowded I thought. The music was loud and misters were way too low. I thought this kind of led to a somewhat seedy atmosphere at the pool. Friday we had lunch at Luxor. After lunch we took a self-guided tour of a few Vegas casinos. We started at Luxor, and then went to Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, New York, and MGM Grand. Of all of those, I thought Mandalay Bay was the nicest casino. Friday night we had dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Margarittaville at Flamingo, and then went to watch the Second City show. Second City is a sketch comedy show - something like Saturday Night Live. It was pretty funny. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Sweatpants!!! After the show we headed down to old Las Vegas to Freemont Street. Covering Freemont Street is a massive TV screen. The casinos there are pretty old. The whole area looked old and dirty. Other than the show on large TV screen, I wasn't that impressed.
Saturday started with the breakfast buffet at Wynn. Wow!! It was a massive buffet. I had sausage, scrambled eggs, roast beef, mashed potatoes, shrimp, fruit, pizza, ice cream, pecan pie, and probably a few more things I can't remember. I was in pain after that - but it was a good pain! After pushing ourselves away from the buffet, we went to the Ferrari dealership at Wynn. I'd never seen so many Ferraris. They had a $1.2 million dollar Ferrari Enzo. What a beautiful car!! After drooling over cars we'll never be able to afford, we headed down to the Venetian to check out the pool there. It was really nice. If you love hanging out by the pool, check out the Venetian. Saturday night we went to the Penn & Teller show at Rio. I really like watching those guys on TV, so seeing them in person was just wonderful. We had seats about 5 rows from the front of the stage. I have no idea how they did some of their tricks. It was really cool to see them do their tricks so close to me. That is pretty much a run down of my activities in Las Vegas. I would definitely go back again. I'll need to save up some more cash first. Vegas was not as cheap as I thought it was. I think every meal I ate cost at least $10. Of course, everything was good too!! I'll probably post a few more entries on my Las Vegas trip in the next few days. 27 juni Viva Las Vegas!My friend DJ recently took a trip to Las Vegas. It sounds like he and his wife had a lot of fun. I've never been to Vegas, but I really want to go sometime. Everybody I know that has gone has always had a good time there. |
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