Paris, Je t'aime, mais Je suis fatigué!

I spent New Years of 2012 in Paris, France. It was amazing. The City of Lights truely lived up to its name. Unfortunately, it's almost March which makes all of this old news. However, Facebook doesn't really allow for elaboration. Many of those photos have a humorous story attached to them. Below you'll find some of the ones that mean the most to me.



Eiffel Tower from my hotel balcony

 I still can't get over how close my hotel was to one of Paris' most well-recognized landmarks. I might, in fact, be overestimating the distance when I say it was a block away. At night, the tower is lit up and can be seen for miles, it even flashes at the top of every hour... Until 2 am, at which point all the light are shut off until tomorrow night. My cousins and I learned this the hard way on one of our many nights out and about. We were attempting to make our way back to the hotel using GPS on a cell phone but we kept saying, "once we see the Eiffel Tower we'll know we're home." We assumed it would be lit up, it was not. At one point, we stood on a corner trying to figure out which way the GPS was telling us to go when my cousin blurts out, "hey, isn't that the Eiffel Tower over there?" We could just barely make it out in the darkness and fog. Suffice to say, as landmarks go, it's great. Just be home before the lights go out!



L'Arc de Triomphe at 5am

 Paris reminded me of both Chicago and New York City. Like Chicago, the place was open late. My cousins and ended up wandering up the Champs-Élysées around 5 am when I got this picture of the Arc de Triomphe. Even at that hour there were people on the street. Much like New York, Parisien fashion was progressive and it gave the entire city a cosmopolitan feeling that blended well with the "Old World" feel of much of the architecture and historical landmarks. It's a feeling that you can't duplicate living in the States and I really enjoyed it while I was there.



Me and my Chicago cousins.
Guest characters on my BET sitcom!

 Some of my best travel memories involve my family. I am so thankful for this for several reasons. I appreciate and love the fact that I am close enough with my cousins that the idea of vacationing with them is exciting. I look forward to family gatherings where we can sit around and talk about the various trips we've been on together. I also love that we're all old enough to enjoy the nighttime acctractions our vaction spots have to offer. It's no fun when someone gets left out and now that will never happen again. All of our trips are a blessing and I'm happy to be included.

As the title suggests, the vaction was awesome even though I was only there for a short time. The memories generated and the new friends made will last a lifetime, j'espère!

Chicago Highlights

It's well known that I was in Chicago this past weekend celebrating my friend's birthday. The trip was my vacation for the year which came at the perfect time because I was in dire need of a change of scenery. I took a fair amount of photos to commemorate the  occasion and all the events that took place. Generally, a trip like this, would produce a blog that detailed what I did an saw while I was there. I think that's kinda boring and would take too long besides. Therefore, I'll hit you with the highlights, the best parts that I remember and some I didn't until I saw my photos...

We look like the principal characters on a BET sitcom

 This was the weekend birthday crew. It was great to see my best friend and all the people I used to hang out with when I lived in the city, plus my boy from high school. I had no doubt it was gonna be a good weekend. Little did I know how good it would turn out to be. This was at The Spot at the beginning of the night. Here we go...!

I sweated through my shirt... It was that popping

 Several hours later, the crew is juking it at Baby Atlas, a basement bar and dance floor at a place called Matilda's. It had to be 110 degrees in the place. Everyone was pressed in close, dancing and having a good time. I hadn't done that in months. The crowd mentality as the music dropped was ri-damn-diculous.

There was a a dance pole in the corner. We never got that far into the joint to take a spin on it, but there were a bunch of other people who lived out their stripper fantasies. I there was an unspoken consensus in our crew that we were "too old for that."

My boy feels right at home...

 The first night ended at a popular late night diner in the same area of the club. Eggs, corned beef hash, potatoes and toast. The perfect capstone to a night of intense alcohol consumption and sweaty dancing. My high school friend and I got home around 4 a.m. An excellent start to the festivities.

I think this will be my new motto.

Day two. With a few hours to kill before a party at my best friend's house, a day bar crawl was suggested. I already wrote about that, though I must confess that I was unable to finish the play-by-play due to severe inebriation. Allow me to complete the deed. The neon light slogan was inside the Town Hall Pub. It was a dimly lit spot with a long, wood L-shaped bar. Behind the bar, photo booth photos plastered all the available wall space.

DS Tequila Co., Fiesta Bowls

The last stop was the DS Tequila Co. We initially went in to do a shot but ended up being talked into Fiesta Bowls, by our lovely waitress, Rachel. More kudos should go to Rachel, we only wanted to get one Fiesta Bowl, but a quick questioning of our manhood earned her a larger tip. Well played.

Valois! If you don't know, find out.

The third day was the Hyde Park tour. It started with breakfast at Valois, a cafeteria-style restaurant. They might have the best pancakes in Chicago. From there, we took a walk around the neighborhood, taking in the places we used to live as well as seeing all the changes to the area since we had last been there.

Robot Library!

We even spent some time on the University of Chicago campus. We took a look at their new automated  library extension, walked the main quad and spent an hour chilling on a bench. We ended with a stop at a popular cafe near campus. My best friend and I had spent hours there, eating apple pie a la carte and drinking coffee drinks.

Better skyline than NYC. 

On Monday, we did a boat tour of Chicago architecture along the river. Our tour was filled out by a high school class from Fort Wayne IN. Besides learning the history of the various skyscrapers in Chicago, the highlight was when the tour guide used the term "hoi polloi." My friends and I snickered and laughed at the fact that he had used the term. None of the highschoolers got it. That made us laugh more.

All in all, a great trip. I forgot how much I love living in a city. Makes me think about making a change...