summer break

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but I was on summer break.  And if your loyalty to this blog has taught you anything, you should know that I typically don't blog during break.  It is mostly because I am too lazy. My mother kept bugging me to write some posts since I had all sorts of free time.  This struck me as odd for 2 reasons.  #1: What did she think I was going to write about?  I literally sat around all day and did nothing. #2: She knew what I was up to (like sitting around doing nothing), so why did she want to read about it?

In reality, my break was only about 40% sitting around doing nothing, so here is the (hopefully) abbreviated version of my break.

May 23: Rode the Metra into the city.  (Cue nostalgia.  Since I spent a fair amount of time riding the Metra in college to commute to and from summer classes at NU, taking a train ride now always makes me a little sad inside that college is over.)  Met up with Kathleen and her mother and went to this adorable little tapas restaurant in Wicker Park, where we ate outside and drank sangria.  It was wonderful.

May 27: Went shopping with my sister at the outlet mall.  Seriously, Pleasant Prairie has the BEST outlet mall.  That night, we went to a bar in Kenosha called Ron's Place.  They had a huge selection of long island ice teas that were served out of mason jars.  The place was packed, so we looked for a seat in the basement.  And it was a basement indeed...carpeted stairs, a fireplace, and a bar along the wall.  I definitely felt like I was back in high school hanging out in a friend's basement...except this time with alcohol.

May 28: Headed into the city a second time to visit the Museum of Science and Industry with my family.  It has been quite a few years since I last went to the museum, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  We saw the Body Worlds exhibit.  I had seen the exhibit before, but seeing it again after I had dissected a human cadaver myself made me appreciate it a bit more.  Good dissection is incredibly difficult to do.  There are tons of tiny structures that are hard to reach and a few wrong cuts with a scalpel can make the entire area look like ground up meat.  I almost wish we had some plasticized models in the anatomy lab to study, because things would have been a lot clearer.  We also took a tour of the U505 submarine, a German U-Boat that was captured during WWII.  The story behind its capture was pretty neat and they had some really cool artifacts in the exhibit, such as some of the clothing the soldiers were wearing when the sub was captured and food canisters that were originally on board.  And there were some neat information about how they moved the sub into the museum too.  Here is my family in front of the sub.

We also found some "interesting" photo opportunities inside the museum.  My dad is usually game for anything.

But even the rest of us couldn't resist the astronaut suit.

And I even found an old-time dentist's office in the mock town from 1910.  After seeing all the old equipment, it makes me happy that I am practicing 100 years into the future and that my office won't look like that.  (Although it was pretty cool that they had a class photo from Northwestern's Dental School from the 19th century hanging on the wall.  I will also have some NU decor on my wall, except it will be a diploma!)

May 29: Met my friend Amanda and her husband for dinner.  It was their second anniversary and they didn't mind spending it with me!

June 1: Went to dinner with my grandparents.  My grandpa is a big fan of Texas Roadhouse, which is okay by me, because their rolls are tasty!

June 2: Went shopping (again!) followed by Tacos El Norte, my favorite Mexican restaurant.  Seriously, they need to open a branch in Arizona because oddly enough, I have yet to find decent Mexican food in this state.

June 4: Had some of the Keto clan over for a visit.  It is always fun to see them all because we are a bit of a ridiculous bunch.  I certainly miss summer cook-outs with all of them.

And last but not least, I did a lot of this during my break.  But you aren't surprised, are you?