NAVY

Ok so I got back late last night from Chicago IL! The trip was fantastic. I had a wonderful time. I am so proud of my little brother I cannot even say it enough. It was so refreshing and exciting to see him in the NAVY. He is a sailor now :) The graduation ceremony was so well done. But I was falling asleep the whole time! I had a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks on the way over there and had an allergic reaction so I had to take some benadryl, which made me super sleepy. Then afterwards Mark told us that he was actually put on medical hold for stress fractures in his legs and that he wouldn't be leaving right away with his division as planned! This was in a sense good news. Because it meant that instead of only getting to see him on Fri we also got to see him on Sat. And my parents (who are there until Mon) got to see him on Sun as well! But because of the change in his status he had to do some moving around and filing paper work on Fri after the graduation ceremony. The ceremony was at 9am and we finally left the base with him on his liberty (his free time) at almost 3pm! While we were waiting for him Jake and I bought some NAVY paraphernalia. I got a sweatshirt and Jake got a workout shirt. I am in love with the sweatshirt that I got! It's so comfortable and I am proud to represent for the NAVY :) Here is a photo of my brother and I, and I am wearing my new sweatshirt!

Anyways, on Friday night we went out for some Chicago style deep dish pizza. It was good, but it was not the best I've ever had. I was disappointed! I have had some deep dish here in Berkeley that was better. Oh well. On Sat afternoon we went to get some hotdogs! And they more then made up for the mediocre pizza! They were amazing!!

I would've never ever put a pickle spear and tomatoes on my hotdog like they did at Paradise Pups, but I wanted to try it exactly like they made them. And I'm glad I did! There is a reason why this place was show on the Food Network! Now it didn't quite look like this when we were there... the whole place was covered in SNOW!

If you ever find yourself in Chicago, you must try this place. I was so yummy. I also had there 3 layer fries, cheddar, sour cream, and bacon. Those were also amazing. Then we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. That was a lot of fun. There were so many different things there to look at. The only thing was that we were short on time. We didn't get to look at the whole place. But I imagine that would take at least a whole day! I did get to see some really neat things that I just learned about in my art history class, which as a nerd made me so excited! And I got to see some more recent artist that I really liked. Then Jake and I had to go to the airport and take our two flights home. Saying goodbye was bittersweet as always. Like I said, I am so proud of him. And I am so happy for him. But I already miss him! On the first flight home we got the last two seats next to eachother! What a close call! And I got confused with the whole time change and thought that we missed our connecting flight! But as was well. We had JUST enough time inbetween the two flights to rush to the gate and go to the bathroom and board! The second flight was delayed because it was so cold they had to defrost the plane before we took off. However the pilot assured us that we would make up the lost time in the air, and we totally did. Because we left for the airport in Chicago at 2:45pm and had no time inbetween the flights we were starving by the time we got in Oakland at 8:15pm! Especially since that meant that it was 11:15pm Chicago time!! We drove right to Sushi House in our old hometown Alameda :)
And we had another amazing meal. The last expense of our mini vacation :) Well I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I am wrapping up my weekend with the stomach flu! I have thrown up three times now and have been in bed all day. I'm just glad that I got it after I got home!

On a total side note... I have been itching to cut all my hair off and donate it...