#26 - Visit 52 New Buildings in Chicago (Fail)

(For the tags)

#40 - Move to a New State

I'm a Cali girl now!

I got into the University of San Diego and then the planning was on!

Dino & K Rob helped me find a new place.  I'm living in Hillcrest, a hipster / gay neighborhood of San Diego.  Love it.  I have 2 roommates right now: Caroline and Shaheen.  Awesome.

Thank you, thank you to the wonderful people who helped me with my move...  Angela & Christina for physical and emotional support.  Norris & Nora for lunch and then helping me actually pack and clean.  Ed & Edric for a pizza dinner and then taking my stuff.

And OF COURSE Jerry Krone for sharing my drive from Chicago to San Diego with 2 cats and a lot of stuff in tow.  We spent a good 5 days together and were even sad to part!  It was an amazing trip and I am SO happy to be here!

#8 - continued

I wanted to make sure I at least tagged everyone who made the list!

#1 Eat a fish I caught.

I got the idea for this one from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I highly recommend it. It is definitely not the preachy, be-a-vegetarian book I heard it was. Michael Pollan's not a vegetarian. He's not telling anyone to be one. He explored what food is and where it comes from. He decided to first have a McDonald's meal and then see if he could figure out where all the pieces of it came from and second to make his own meal, fully from things he himself hunted, gathered, and cooked.

The book made me think a lot about what I eat, how messed up the food industry is and how detached we are from our food.

Don't worry. I'm not going to get all preachy on you either.

This item made the list because I decided that I should be more attached to my food and realize what I'm eating. I decided that if I could catch a fish, clean it, and eat it, I

could keep eating meat for now. Could I kill some big mammal? Probably not. I mean, I have a hard time killing bugs. Bugs. Even ants. And it hurts me a little when people kill spiders. (I got that

weird hang up from Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, which felt a lot like Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to me: really thought-provoking message but just not good literature. Though, at least Kingsolver's story and characters were believeable, so it feels like the message stuck with me a little better. If you're offended, I'll argue with you about Rand some other time. Be ready though. I have an arsenal.) I probably couldn't kill a chicken either. Probably.

But I did it. I caught the fish - accompanied by Dave Merrill, Edmund Cruz, Edric Cruz, Nader Elmasri, and Norris Narsa. It kinda drowned on its own, so I didn't have to whack it or anything, which Alicia had made mention of the day before and I freaked out. I would have a really hard time actually actively killing. Even though I know it's the same thing letting it passively die. So the fish died. You can see in an earlier post how I cut of its head, slit it's belly, and pulled out its insides.

The plan was to then build a fire, cook the fish, and it eat that night, but a huge storm rolled in and killed that plan. So Dave Merrill froze the fish for a later date.

This past weekend, Angela Mioglionico and Danielle Reyes joined me at Dave Merill's. Dave built a fire. Danielle named the fish Gary. And we cooked him up. He was a little rubbery and tasteless, but he was fine.

I only wish I could have done it all in one day so he'd really feel like a real fish I was eating. One that was squirming in my hand just a few hours before. But it worked.

Next time I want an ocean fish!

# 83 Have Dinner in 3 Neighborhoods I Have Never Been To

I thought this would be an easy one. I like food. I like new neighborhoods. Chicago has lots of fun neighborhoods. Cake. (Yum.)

It was not easy.

It turns out I've been to pretty much all of the neighborhoods on the north and west sides. Yeah, I was surprised too.

The dinners had to be in neighborhoods I had never BEEN to, so as long as I could say, "I played sofball in Pilsen" or "I've been to the DMV in Jefferson Park," they were just as off limits as "I live in North Center." (Yes, that's a place. It's where I live. I swear. It's between Lincoln Square and Roscoe Village. I swear. I know you've lived here all your life and you've never heard of it. It's a thing. No, really. It's a thing. There's a big pillar at Damen, Irving, and Lincoln that says "North Center." Yes, I know you remember seeing that now. That's the neighborhood name. Yep, weird.)

The first new neighborhood was a double dipper, so I already wrote about it. Edmund Cruz, Edric Cruz, and NAdar Elmasri accompanied me to Chinatown where we had a lovely but rushed meal. You can read about that back a few posts.

The second new neighborhood was Little Village with Edmund Cruz and Chris Zann. We had some delish Mexican food. I don't remember what they all were except that mine was a combo of delicious things and Ed had stuffed peppers. And we had margaritas. And then we went to see Lefko.

The third new neighborhood was Little Italy with Alan Fortunate (appropriate). We had a lovely, romantic 5pm dinner at an Italian tapas-type place. I had a hearts of palm salad; Al had some pasta; and we shared a pizza. Yum.

New neighborhoods: explored. I do think I'll try to eat in some of the ones I've just BEEN to, like Pilsen. I've heard good things. And this whole city is delicious. Might as well keep eating my way through it.

I am so hungry right now. Bubble tea, anyone?

#100 Go to Milwaukee's Summerfest

Well, we had some trials getting to Summerfest that fateful Thursday... My car wouldn't start. Norris was worried about his car. As was everyone else about their cars. Drinks went flying. Some of us spent money shopping that we didn't have. (Me.)

You can see some of the travel trials tension in the pre-concert pictures. We'll leave it at that.

But we made it. Though we were a bit late for Kid Cudi. Sorry. Kid Cuuuuuuudddiiii. So he might have put on a good show. I'm not sure.

Kanye killed it. (Is that how the kids say it?) So much fun. He even brought the ballerinas!

As you can see, there is a lot more glee in the post-concert pictures. Thanks, Ye! And thanks, Nader, Edric, Jessica, Norris, Ahmed, and Adrienne for accompanying me!

Two days later, I went to see Airborne Toxic Event with Zann, Holly, Lindsay, and Sahil. I don't really know them - Airborne, I mean, I know the people I went with - and they were lovely. I now want to listen to more of their music. (Make it happen, Ang!) They were fun and engaging and delightfully dance-worthy. Plus, during this trip I got to walk around Summerfest some.

I'd go back if someone I wanted to see was playing a smaller stage, but otherwise, I'll stick to the little street fests in the city. It was fun though!

#100 Clean a Fish

Ed, Edric, Nader, Norris, and I took a road trip out of the city to Dave's for some fishin'.

Dave rigged us up.

We fished. I had a lot more fun than it looks like I'm having.

I caught a big fish, bigger than I have ever caught anyways. Dave didn't know what it was. He had to look it up. It was a fresh water drum.

Nader caught a stick and a lot of seaweed.

Ed caught the same little fish twice.

Dave taught me how to clean a fish. It was not as gross as I thought it would be. It consisted of cutting off the head, slicing the belly, and pulling out the guts. I thought it was going to be crazy nasty awful. The worst part is that I swear my hands still smell like fish.

A storm ruined the plans to build a fire, cook the fish over the fire, and eat the fish, so instead we ordered pizza, watched the Bulls, played back tag, punched watermelons, and rocked out.

#77 Don't Drink for a Week

I did it. It was much harder than I anticipated.

#87 Eat at Hot Doug's

Hot Doug's is a Chicago legend. It used to be on Roscoe, just blocks from where I used to live, but then it moved to... well, a few blocks further down Roscoe at California.

Doug makes hot dogs.

All of you: "Wait, Megan, I thought you hated hot dogs? It's true."

Doug also makes all kinds of crazy sausages from all kinds of things: duck, antelope, bison, just to name a few.

Those sausages are amazing.

This all went down on a day I was dreading. I went to work expecting to teach lay responder CPR and First Aid ALL DAY, which is exhausting and boring.

When I arrived, Yessenia was there ready to teach instead! Hooray Yessenia!

So Edric suggested we get crazy and go to Hot Doug's. Norris agreed.

We got there around 2pm and still waited in line for at least 20 minutes. We made friends with our line mates. The first group were friendly, skinny, hipster guys. One took our picture. Edric hated him. I thought he was okay. I did not want to date him. Norris. Then, Norris and Edric were singing the theme song to "Doug." The guy behind us joined in. He looked like a total dork. He was. But he was also awesome. He filled us in on the new sausage introduced the day before. We asked why he knew so much. And he has the tatoo!

See. if you get the Hot Doug's logo tatooed on your body, you get free Hot Doug's for life! For life! Anytime you want! Apparently you still have to wait in line.

I had a braturst (the Paul Kelly) with sauerkraut and the new sausage, which was cherry and apple pork sausage with pear mustard and Vosages bacon chocolate on top.

Holy crap. Delicious.

Smiles all around. Except for Norris whining about how he didn't love his friends and he ordered too much.

I'm not ready for the tatoo... yet, but I will return! Maybe this time with Holly. And on a Friday or Saturday when they have duck-fat fries!

#88 Eat in Chinatown

After one failed trip to Chinatown that ended in burgers and a birthday party, we finally made it southward and into Chinatown (after a short tour of the neighborhoods around White Sox Park).

Ed, Edric, and I took a leisurely stroll through the gate and down some Chinatown street, where I was shown the local architecture - like the community center that used to be full of Chinese gangsters - and culture - like the "We Call Police" signs. I saw where The Karate Kid was shot - meaning, Edric explained, where he was SHOT, not where the movie was shot. I learned that the Chinese traditionally walk... to their bikes. So much knowledge from my authentic tour guides.

We arrived at Evergreen restaurant and the waitstaff eagerly approached us, again and again, asking for our orders, though we insisted we were waiting for our fourth. We had a secret appetizer while waiting. We also finished a pot of tea and annoyed the waitstaff with wanting more. They then said the kitchen was closing, so we had to fudge it. I had to get Edric to quickly translate the menu for me so I didn't end up with shark's fin soup, not that I haven't heard it isn't tasty but I will NEVER eat my friends, the sharks. And if I see you do it, I'll threaten to punch you in the face.

We had Walnut Shrimp, some kind of Beef with Peking Sauce something something, and Chicken Fried Rice. And White Rice. Then Nader showed up with his friend Chad. The restaurant staff stared us down as we all ate.

Then they gave us the check.

Then they busted out the vaccuums.

So we hurried to leave and I had to go the long way around as the guy with the vaccuum was chasing Nader out down the direct route to the door.

Our fortunes were lovely though. Usually I hate fortune cookies because they don't give fortunes anymore. Claudio & I decided awhile ago they should just change the name to Pleasant Thought Cookies, and then everyone would be happy. But now when I get, "You have a lovely smile," I just get angry it isn't a fortune. Last night though, I got, "A new pair of shoes will do wonders for you." I have mixed feelings about this. I would love to get a new pair of shoes, especially if they will do me wonders, but I'm broke. I guess this is what it's like to know the future and have to make choices knowing it. So difficult. Chad stupidly gave his fortune cookie to Edric, who then got 2 fortunes, the second one being, "Your present ventures will be successful," or something close to that. I wish I had gotten that one.

Then I mailed a letter.

So then we walked to the square, "where the cool kids hang out," according to Ed, and had some bubble tea. I had some anxiety with all the choices. So many pictures. (Ed explained the menu to me this time and Edric to Nader. Chad seemed okay on his own.) And it was only my second bubble tea. We had a nice philosophical debate on whether or not to stick with what you know and like (Edric) or try new things in case you like something better (Nader & me). Deep.

I ended up with pomegranate peach. Lovely. Stupidly, Edric didn't get the 50 ouncer. What a sucker.

We were then rushed out of that place as it was closing. We took some photos by some animals and did some tai chi.

The end.