A Disco Birthday Party

I had a dentist appointment on a Friday so I took the day off from work since I had to travel to the suburbs.  I finished my workouts earlier in the week and had nothing to do when I got back.  My friend who works at Disco in River North invited me to her birthday party.  I haven’t seen her in a while and wondered how she’s been doing.  I made up my mind that I was going to meet her downtown.

Luckily the weather was in the high 50s.  I opted to wear my fleece bomber with my new graphic t-shirt since I could get away from not wearing a coat.  I made my way to see her but she warned me to get there a bit later since it was still empty inside.  I have not been out in a while and it was interesting to watch people walk around in the area.  Once inside I made my way upstairs and found her table.  She looked beautiful in her sequined two piece.  Her other friends arrived and I recognized one of them from our trip to Las Vegas years ago.  We were goofing around and had a blast that night.  I miss dancing…

La Vie Sociale

I did it!!  I FINALLY caught up on my blog!!  This usually is a rare thing for me, but I’m proud to say I don’t mind being behind on my posts.  For one, it means I’m living my life and not wondering what’s going on with social media.  I do not want to be one of those people who are constantly posting away to “keep in the moment”.  I rather LIVE in the moment and reminisce later.  It’s a blessing to be able to look back and remember these sweet memories I have shared with my family and friends.  They mean the world to me!

With my trip coming up, I don’t have too much planned out.  This will be a first for me as well, but it’s mostly because I’ve been there before and saw most of my interests the first time around.  I’m hoping I get a chance to see other sides of Europe that I might have missed beforehand.  So much has changed in the world since I last was there and I’m curious how that will play out for me.

Over the weekend I got my seasonal haircut Friday after work, but I felt a migraine coming on.  Can you believe I had this migraine all weekend???  It woke me up early Saturday morning so I took something and proceeded to do my chores around the house.  I mostly did laundry and started packing once I ironed out my clothes.  I had a birthday dinner to attend to at 6:30pm, so I managed to squeeze in a workout.  At the gym is when my migraine resurfaced again.  I managed to finish my workout but had to rush home to get ready.  Unfortunately I never took anything that evening, but with all of the festivities going on, I tried to ignore it the best I could.

At the dinner at Emilio’s Tapas I caught up with friends and we were enjoying our night.  We ended up walking down the street to the Marriot Hotel so we could have some birthday cupcakes for dessert.  Of course, we didn’t want to go home yet.  We walked over to Broken Shaker for cocktails.  The waitress suggested we tried their punch bowl and we were glad that we did!  It satisfied all of us and we even had seconds!

Now that the party was JUST GETTING STARTED, we decided to go to our favorite club, Disco.  I was surprised that we walked over to that one too, but by the time we got in the club, my feet were beginning to hurt.  We managed to get at table to rest up but we couldn’t stop dancing!  The dj was playing oldies like New Order and Depeche Mode and we were having a blast.

I couldn’t believe we closed the club down.  Not to mention, it was Daylight Savings Weekend, so it was later than I thought.  It hit me then that I was done for the night.  The birthday girl had fun and I finally had enough.  I couldn’t wait to go home.

I really wanted to go to church in the morning, and I did.  But sure enough, my migraine was still lingering.  I took some Tylenol at home twice that day, and to my surprise, woke up with a huge migraine Monday morning.  I was a mess.  I did not feel well for the most part.  Today I’m mostly exhausted because I feel I never truly rested this past weekend.  Now that my trip is in a few days, my anxiety will kick in.  I think that’s why I’m glad I don’t have too much planned ahead.  I’m more concerned about my health if anything.

See ya when I come back!  The rest of this week I’m going to lay low by cleaning up my apartment and trying to squeeze as many workouts that I can.  Until next time!!

Allons en ville!

I’m still recapping February’s events!  We’re still experiencing frigid weather here in Chicago, and most of the East coast are getting snow.  So technically, winter is going strong.  Lol.

The last weekend in February was pretty crazy.  I knew I should rest up because me and my friends were going to throw a baby shower for someone.  But that didn’t stop me from stepping out on the town.  Saturday morningme and the girls got together for brunch to discuss the details of the shower.  We quickly picked up a few things to make sure we had everything we needed.  The shower was being held on Sunday, so we were crunched for time.  I knew some friends were in town from North Carolina and they wanted to meet up in the evening for dinner.  I told them I would skip dinner since I had brunch earlier.  I’m a light eater and eating out twice would not benefit my tummy.  I worked out after hanging with the girls and then got ready. 

Brunch at Dapper’s East

I met up with everyone at Sunda.  My out-of-town-friends really love that restaurant and always try to book a reservation whenever they’re in Chicago.  I had my cocktails and caught up with them afterwards.  I knew it was supposed to rain and was skeptical about going out at all, but here I was.  Sure enough, it started to pour while we were inside.  WHEW!  But of course, the rain wouldn’t give up, and we grew tired of sitting around.  We decided to try to go to a wine bar around the corner.  I was being a baby because I had on my black suede ankle boots.  Suede and rain don’t mix, but luckily it wasn’t raining heavily as it was earlier.

We settled at Public House for a round of drinks.  Since we didn’t know what to do next, we decided to go to their favorite nightclub Disco.  They were hoping to bar hop for a bit but the weather was too annoying to walk in the rain.

Luckily, we got in right away and headed upstairs.  Disco is a lot of fun and my out-of-town-friends absolutely love it.  We practically closed the place down before heading to an afterhours spot.  I probably should have been home hours earlier but I ended up checking in at 6am!  YIKES! 

Heartbreak at Hubbard

I’m still trying to catch up on August events!  I finally decided that I will also visit Paris when I’m in Europe next week.  It’s been difficult these past few days trying to coordinate something with my friend who moved to Italy.  Unfortunately, I decided in the end that I will not be seeing her this time around.  I didn’t have much to work with and time was working against us.  I will be taking the Eurostar to Paris so I’m excited I won’t be hopping from plane to plane like I’ve done in the past.  I’ve been having trouble with my nerves again, and haven’t been able to hold anything in my stomach.  I hate myself whenever I go through this.  I can’t believe I still have trouble THINKING about getting on a plane.  Even the sound of a plane flying by creeps me out.  Maybe I should work at an airport part-time so I can get use to all of the noise and commotion?  I don’t know anymore…

Well back to part 2 of our friends visiting from North Carolina.  It turns out it birthday boy number 2 wanted to celebrate as well, and his dinner was going to be held at Mercadito.  I woke up not feeling so great that Saturday, and started to do my chores around my apartment.  I got a call on the phone that changed my mood completely.  Even as I’m writing this, I’m tearing up.  It’s nothing bad.  No one died, has cancer, etc.  Just one of those calls that makes you realize how much time has passed since my breakup.

I couldn’t stop crying afterwards, and my usual Saturday routine would be to hang out at my apartment so I could unwind from my job.  Not this Saturday.  I knew I was going to drive myself crazy with my thoughts, so I got dressed and ran out of the house.  The air and water show was happening that day, but I wanted to see what my friends from out of town were doing.  Unfortunately I was on the phone for over 2 hours that I missed the show.  By the time I was getting downtown, my friends told me they were heading back to the hotel.  

I mostly walked around.  I went to my favorite beach on Ohio and just sat and watched people.  There were a lot of boats on the lake.  It dawned on me how much I couldn’t wait to leave and see new faces.  I’ve been feeling this way ever since.

I did some window shopping and headed home to rest.  I was not in the mood to go out at all but my friends insisted.  I let my girlfriend know ahead of time what was going on in case people noticed the change in me.  The night before I was happy to be out but now I was a complete mess.  I was worried I would start crying out of the blue, but my girlfriend understood and told me she would keep me occupied. 

I got to dinner pretty late.  Everyone was finishing up.  They decided to stay a bit longer at Mercadito to have some cocktails.  I haven’t been there in a while so it was nice to see the hustle and bustle of a Saturday night.  In the end we decided to go to Hubbard Inn to continue the party.  I started to feel better there.  Our birthday party crew got bigger with more people arriving to join in on the fun.

We went across the street to Disco (again) and danced around.  My feet were killing me at this point, but I tried to stick it out as long as I could.  I went home.

What I learned is sometimes you need to be “distracted” in order not to be consumed with your own thoughts.  Whoever said you are your own worst enemy was not lying…    

Rocking at Ronero!

I’m going to try my best to recap my events before I leave on my trip, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to catch up.  My emotions have been all over the place.  So much tension around me.  I concluded today that I do indeed need to get away because I need to reflect on myself.  People are so intense around me.  I wish things weren’t like this.

In the news right now are more natural disasters, political mumbo jumbo, and basically no reason things should matter because the world will be ending soon anyway.  It’s hard to be optimistic when the worse-case scenario is constantly in your face.  How can anyone live like this?

Back in mid-August some friends of ours were visiting from North Carolina.  I was excited to see them because I wanted to get my mind off of things.  Unfortunately, it first seemed plans were not working out, but in the end, luckily it did.  We had dinner at Ronero and then headed upstairs to the main lounge.  We had bottle service and lived it up.  It was such a random thing to do.  We wanted to keep going and not end the night so we headed to Disco for some more action.  I got so tired once we got there.  I felt bad that I had to leave.  Talk about running out of steam!  lol 

Let's Play in the Park!

I've been getting my things ready for my big trip.  I opted not to get a haircut because apparently the weather right now in Athens is in the high 90s!  Yikes!  I probably will be wearing my hair up to be practical.  We didn't get that high up in the temperatures in Chicago, but last week was just as hot.  On Thursday I ended up meeting my friends in Millenium Park for a concert.  We were dripping in sweat while we heard the sounds of African rock.  We even decided to checkout Cindy's rooftop for a cocktail and it was still very humid up there as well!

Packed crowd at Millenium Park!

Last weekend I basically caught up on all of my laundry and chores around the apartment.  I went through my closet and pulled out some pieces for my trip.  I didn't want to get bombarded this weekend with those details.  My friend in Italy has given me a short list of things to get her when I meet her.  She loves her MAC products but in Italy it costs 3x as much.  Who knew?
I was invited to a birthday party in the evening and met up with my friends at Roka Akor.  They had been out on the boat all day but I opted not to go.  I knew I wouldn't get things done if I had joined them.  I also skipped out on dinner because I need to stay on my budget for my trip.  I knew they were planning on going out afterwards and figured I'll celebrate with the birthday boy there. 
We had a big group and things started to get a little hectic when we couldn't decide on what to do.  I ended up back at Cindy's rooftop with a group, only to find out the other half of the group stayed behind on Hubbard street.  One thing about me is, I'm pretty flexible when it comes down to partying with friends.  Some people are not.  Trust me, crazy things can go wrong but that's to be expect when there's alcohol involved.  lol.  I felt some tension because of the mix up, but the important thing was for us to start celebrating to get passed the frustration.  After all, we were out for the birthday boy!

I caught up with my friends at Roka Akor...

We came back to Hubbard and ended up in Hub51.  It was very crowded, but we made the most of it there.  Afterwards, we decided to walk down the street to see what else was happening.  That's when we stumbled upon Disco upstairs from Celeste.  I loved it!!  It has a very 70s Saturday Night Fever vibe to it, and the music was amazing!  We couldn't stop dancing! 
We closed out downstairs at Celeste and that was our evening.  I hope the birthday boy had fun because I sure did!

Me and the birthday boy at Disco! 

Checkout the names of those cocktails!

I'm glad I wore my gold sequined purse for Disco! 

As far as this past week goes, I've caught up with all of my work and feel good about it.  I saw my mom on Tuesday and went over the details on my trip with her.  I also met up with a friend on Wednesday and did the same drill.  I don't want anyone to worry about my whereabouts.
Today I've been messaging my friends in Italy and in Greece.  I'm getting very nervous again, but as long as I have everything ready this weekend, I should be fine.  I can't let my anxiety get the best of me!  I want to see the world and there's no way to do that but to get on a plane!  Until then, wish me luck and I'll be back in September!  ciao ciao...