Trip to Indiana and Chicago
I flew from Ontario, CA to Phoenix, and then headed from there right off to Indianapolis. When I got into Indianapolis, Emily picked me up and we took the hour drive north east to her home town of West Lafayette. It was amazing to see how green the state is, with tons of grass, farms, and forests as far as the eye can see. It was defiantly a different change of pace compared to suburbia of Southern California. The houses out there are so different then ours. Lots of them acturally give a more lived in feeling rather then our structured almost the same looking homes. Emily's house is huge, and has an good amount of land. Lets just say if her house was in LA, it would be worth a million and a half dollars. The first day was basic, met her parents, chilled, showed me around her town alittle bit, then went to see Hangover with her and a friend of her's named James.
One of the best things about traveling is trying new food places, and I have to say, Indiana has some good places to eat and even has a few different things in there grocery stores then what we have here in the west. The first thing I see when we walk into a grocery store on the first day was Jolly Rancher Soda. I saw that and I said NO WAY!!!!! I bought the watermelon one to see how it would taste. I have to say that soda was damn good. It was like a Jolly Rancher that was just melted. Had the full flavor of a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Im glad we don't have there here, cuz my god, I would totally have that at least once every other week. Speaking of soda, things in the mid west seem to be more old school. It's not like California where everything becomes modern. Emily took me to a place in downtown Lafayette that has fountain "pop". At first i didn't know what it ment, but when we got there, I ordered the same thing as Emily, a Diet Marsh mellow coke. They first put the some dark syrup, then went to a fountain thingy and filled it up with carbonated water. I was like....WOW...they make the soda in front of you...NO WAY. After they where done mixing it all together, then she poured a lot of marshmellow cream stuff on top. I have to say, that was one awesome soda that I drank.
Other then soda, there where a few restaurants that we went to that I wish we had here in California. The first place we went is called Jimmy Johns! Its a sub sandwich place, but what makes it high above Subway and Quiznos (In my opinion) is the freshness and the speed of how they make the subs. You go up to the place where you order, and you tell them what you want, and by the time you are finished paying (this happens in less then a min) your sandwich is already done, and they have like 3 people that work on your sandwich at once. It was crazy. They also deliver too. Their bread was totally awesome and the entire sandwich was just awesome. There is only one Jimmy Johns in California, and its in a suburb of Fresno :( We need one here in Southern California. The other resturant we went to is like a mix from In N Out and A & W. This place, called Triple XXX, is an old fashioned burger place that makes their own root beer. The best part with their burgers is the freshness, for they make their own hamburger patty's upstairs and then bring them down to cook them. You can't get any fresher then that, and you can totally tell when eating into it.
One of the days in Indiana, Emily took me back down to Indianapolis for a day. We first went to the Children's Museum. I know, kinda strange, but who cares...lol, it was acturally a really nice museum. The coolest thing I liked was that they had a temporary exhibit with actural costumes and props used in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. That was awesome to see. The other cool thing at the museum was this giant clock that is controlled completely with blue water. It was designed by a math person in France and is supposed to do perfect time. It was awesome. After the Museum, we went to the countries second largest Cemetery, called Crown Hill Cemetery. It was very big, and we drive around. The crazyest thing I saw while driving though was that some people's headstones where actual benches, so that their family members can sit and chill with them. It was really trippy. We also saw the grave of the 23rd President of the United States. It was interesting because we don't even know who this president was. After the cemetery, we went downtown to Memorial Circle, which is a traffic circle in the middle of downtown, and has a huge war memorial in the middle of the traffic circle, which stands for the civil war and all the other wars. It was big, it has water fountains, a civil war museum and other stuff. After taking pics and stuff, we adventured over the the state capitol building. When we got to the door, we noticed it closed 30 mins before we got there. Then without warning, a guy nicely dressed and that had a brief case openned the door and asked, "ARE YOU TERRORISTS?" Emily and I right away was like....ummmmmmm......no!? The guy then said I am just kidding, you want to come inside, I can tell you won't do anything bad. We took his offer and we got inside while he left. We barley passed the stairs from the doors on the side when a Indiana State Police Officer came to us and asked if we worked here. Of course we said no, and he said we had to leave. So we did go in the capitol building, but got kicked out right way. As we walked back to Memorial Circle, we saw that cop do to a pizza place. WTF!!!!! After that we went to the downtown mall, then went to eat at an awesome italian resturant called Bravo...IT WAS SO GOOD.
One of the best things about traveling is trying new food places, and I have to say, Indiana has some good places to eat and even has a few different things in there grocery stores then what we have here in the west. The first thing I see when we walk into a grocery store on the first day was Jolly Rancher Soda. I saw that and I said NO WAY!!!!! I bought the watermelon one to see how it would taste. I have to say that soda was damn good. It was like a Jolly Rancher that was just melted. Had the full flavor of a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Im glad we don't have there here, cuz my god, I would totally have that at least once every other week. Speaking of soda, things in the mid west seem to be more old school. It's not like California where everything becomes modern. Emily took me to a place in downtown Lafayette that has fountain "pop". At first i didn't know what it ment, but when we got there, I ordered the same thing as Emily, a Diet Marsh mellow coke. They first put the some dark syrup, then went to a fountain thingy and filled it up with carbonated water. I was like....WOW...they make the soda in front of you...NO WAY. After they where done mixing it all together, then she poured a lot of marshmellow cream stuff on top. I have to say, that was one awesome soda that I drank.
Other then soda, there where a few restaurants that we went to that I wish we had here in California. The first place we went is called Jimmy Johns! Its a sub sandwich place, but what makes it high above Subway and Quiznos (In my opinion) is the freshness and the speed of how they make the subs. You go up to the place where you order, and you tell them what you want, and by the time you are finished paying (this happens in less then a min) your sandwich is already done, and they have like 3 people that work on your sandwich at once. It was crazy. They also deliver too. Their bread was totally awesome and the entire sandwich was just awesome. There is only one Jimmy Johns in California, and its in a suburb of Fresno :( We need one here in Southern California. The other resturant we went to is like a mix from In N Out and A & W. This place, called Triple XXX, is an old fashioned burger place that makes their own root beer. The best part with their burgers is the freshness, for they make their own hamburger patty's upstairs and then bring them down to cook them. You can't get any fresher then that, and you can totally tell when eating into it.
One of the days in Indiana, Emily took me back down to Indianapolis for a day. We first went to the Children's Museum. I know, kinda strange, but who cares...lol, it was acturally a really nice museum. The coolest thing I liked was that they had a temporary exhibit with actural costumes and props used in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. That was awesome to see. The other cool thing at the museum was this giant clock that is controlled completely with blue water. It was designed by a math person in France and is supposed to do perfect time. It was awesome. After the Museum, we went to the countries second largest Cemetery, called Crown Hill Cemetery. It was very big, and we drive around. The crazyest thing I saw while driving though was that some people's headstones where actual benches, so that their family members can sit and chill with them. It was really trippy. We also saw the grave of the 23rd President of the United States. It was interesting because we don't even know who this president was. After the cemetery, we went downtown to Memorial Circle, which is a traffic circle in the middle of downtown, and has a huge war memorial in the middle of the traffic circle, which stands for the civil war and all the other wars. It was big, it has water fountains, a civil war museum and other stuff. After taking pics and stuff, we adventured over the the state capitol building. When we got to the door, we noticed it closed 30 mins before we got there. Then without warning, a guy nicely dressed and that had a brief case openned the door and asked, "ARE YOU TERRORISTS?" Emily and I right away was like....ummmmmmm......no!? The guy then said I am just kidding, you want to come inside, I can tell you won't do anything bad. We took his offer and we got inside while he left. We barley passed the stairs from the doors on the side when a Indiana State Police Officer came to us and asked if we worked here. Of course we said no, and he said we had to leave. So we did go in the capitol building, but got kicked out right way. As we walked back to Memorial Circle, we saw that cop do to a pizza place. WTF!!!!! After that we went to the downtown mall, then went to eat at an awesome italian resturant called Bravo...IT WAS SO GOOD.
One of the days, it ended up raining, so we chilled around her town. She gave me a tour of Purdue University, which is where she is going to school, and she also took me to the place where she used to work on campus. The most trippy thing about the campus was it has underground tunnels to major buildings and parking structures. I am guessing that is because of the cold winters and weather they get out there. Afterwards, we went to her mom's work, which is fleet services, and she showed me the school mascot that just happened to be in for repairs. Its an truck that is in a shape of a old steam engine train. It was acturally really cool to see. Check out the pics to see it.
One of the main highlights of the trip was going to Chicago for a day. We took the two hour drive into downtown Chicago, with a stop at a awesome cheese factory. We decided to get tickets for a Double Decker Bus that would take us around the city, and we can get off at designated stops to look around, for as long as we would like. We started off at Millennium Park and went forth throughout the city. It was a windy, overcast foggy day in the city. We saw tons of things from Navy Pier, Sear's Tower, Opera's House (don't really care, but i can brag to those who love her that I saw where she lives), a cool popcorn place, and all the other main things to see in Chicago. The best thing, in my opinion, to see was Millennium Park, going up to the top of Sears Tower, and seeing some of the places where The Dark Knight was filmed. Going up the Sears tower was awesome, rode in the 3rd fastest elevator to get to the top. By the time we got to Sears Tower, we where lucky enough to have the fog clear away from the skyline so we could actually see the city. I would highly recommend for anyone who wants to travel the country, must go see Chicago. It is one city like no other in the country. I hope I get to go back, and for a longer time period so I can enjoy all Chicago has to offer.
Going to the airport was awesome from Emily's house. It was raining and Cloudy and awesome. I got to the airport to learn that there where no flights landing or taking off. All flights where grounded in Indianapolis and diverted to Chicago. I do have to say, it was cool sitting there and looking outside the windows, for hundreds of lighting bolts where all over the place hitting the ground. It was like a awesome light show. I wish we had lighting storms like this in California. We get lightning, but not like that. I got back, and learned there where 23 tornado's in the area that morning. I totally wanted to see one, so I can say i saw one, but in some ways, it was good i didn't see one.
I really enjoyed myself on this trip, and I want to thank Emily for letting me come visit her in her neck of the woods. Hopefully, I will be able to head back to experience more things in the mid west, and to have Jimmy Johns again. Tried the one in California, and it isn't the same.
One of the main highlights of the trip was going to Chicago for a day. We took the two hour drive into downtown Chicago, with a stop at a awesome cheese factory. We decided to get tickets for a Double Decker Bus that would take us around the city, and we can get off at designated stops to look around, for as long as we would like. We started off at Millennium Park and went forth throughout the city. It was a windy, overcast foggy day in the city. We saw tons of things from Navy Pier, Sear's Tower, Opera's House (don't really care, but i can brag to those who love her that I saw where she lives), a cool popcorn place, and all the other main things to see in Chicago. The best thing, in my opinion, to see was Millennium Park, going up to the top of Sears Tower, and seeing some of the places where The Dark Knight was filmed. Going up the Sears tower was awesome, rode in the 3rd fastest elevator to get to the top. By the time we got to Sears Tower, we where lucky enough to have the fog clear away from the skyline so we could actually see the city. I would highly recommend for anyone who wants to travel the country, must go see Chicago. It is one city like no other in the country. I hope I get to go back, and for a longer time period so I can enjoy all Chicago has to offer.
Going to the airport was awesome from Emily's house. It was raining and Cloudy and awesome. I got to the airport to learn that there where no flights landing or taking off. All flights where grounded in Indianapolis and diverted to Chicago. I do have to say, it was cool sitting there and looking outside the windows, for hundreds of lighting bolts where all over the place hitting the ground. It was like a awesome light show. I wish we had lighting storms like this in California. We get lightning, but not like that. I got back, and learned there where 23 tornado's in the area that morning. I totally wanted to see one, so I can say i saw one, but in some ways, it was good i didn't see one.
I really enjoyed myself on this trip, and I want to thank Emily for letting me come visit her in her neck of the woods. Hopefully, I will be able to head back to experience more things in the mid west, and to have Jimmy Johns again. Tried the one in California, and it isn't the same.
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