Puttering Through Life: Not really the Windy City

Okay so fall break was at the beginning of October. Hope College this is our first break of the fall semester. No we do not get Labor Day off because rumor has it the college was having problems where they would loose a ton of freshmen after that break. Hope starts classes maybe not even a week before Labor Day so freshmen were not getting much of an experience of college and just becoming very homesick. This break wasn't working so they changed it so that we would still have class on Labor Day.

Well when fall break comes everyone gets super duper excited. It's just a 5 day weekend but it's nice to have a little break before we have to make the next stretch to Thanksgiving break.

For fall break I generally stay in Holland and hang out at home and try to get ahead in my classes. Not this fall break. It had been about a good 3 months since I last saw my boyfriend R in person, that was before school started!!! So I bought train tickets and called him up and said I was coming down to Chicago for several days to see him. Needless to say he was enthralled and could not wait.

Now generally when I come down we do the same things. We go eat at the same resturants, see the same things, and shop in the same places. Now the places we normally go are fantastic but it gets boring after a while. So this time I told him we were going to throw in some new adventures this time, once he heard that he went right into researching things and planning surprises.

We of course went to a couple of our favorite food spots, made a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, and popped our heads into our favorite shops. But the news things we added were AWESOME! My dad suggested we go to the Modern Contemporary Art Museum to see the David Bowie is Now exhibit. Let me tell you it was freaking awesome! If you have a chance go to it, it is totally worth the money and time. Of course you couldn't take pictures in the exhibit because of copyright issues but man it was killer. Besides that we wondered into a few new eateries that exceeded our expectations.

I was also able to drop into a ballet class at the Joffery Ballet on the Sunday that I was in Chicago. I have been wanting to do this for a very long time and I finally had the time and chance to do so. The class was a beginning ballet class but that was fine with me, I was able to really focus and work on my technique. I woke up the next morning so sore it took me 15 minutes to get out of bed, that is a sign I worked super hard!

The one big surprise R had for me that weekend was that he took me to the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was so incredible. It was both our first time there and now I know it won't be our last. It is the last and largest free zoo in the country and it did not disappoint. The animals were lively and looked happy as clams (there were no clams). We spent the WHOLE day there and I wish we had had more time. After that we wondered over to the Botanical Garden which was right next to the Zoo. So many pretty plants and such a pretty building.

Well that's enough of me jabbering. I'll leave you with some photos I took from that weekend and maybe I'll share more stories later on!

I was maybe just a *little* excited

R and I have always seen this resturaunt from the street, it's on the second floor of a building, and we finally found the enterence and tried it out. So good!

The Grand Lux Cafe