Bucket List: Go On A Mission Trip

I actually went on two missions trips over back to back summers.  The first was in 2004 and the second in 2005.

I talked about my first missions trip a few days ago.  We went to Chicago to work with Jesus People USA.  This was a 100% missions trip.  We worked the whole time and only had one evening of free time.  We went to a soup kitchen, visited with the elderly, worked at a halfway house and so much more.  It was a great trip and an amazing learning experience.

The second missions trip was part missions trip part fun trip.  We went to Acadia National Park in Maine.   However, we didn't know where we were going until we got there - only the leaders knew.  On this trip we did a lot of fun things but the missions work was also super fun.  We got to help out with the Central Maine Egg Festival.   As weird as it sounds, it was a lot of fun!  There were games, face painting, crafts, etc.  We were actually featured in the local newspaper - they wrote about our trip and our work with the festival.

Bucket List: Visit Chicago

I have been fortunate enough to visit Chicago twice; once in 2004 and once in 2013.

 My first visit was in 2004 with my church youth group.  We roadtriped to Chicago to work with an organization called Jesus People USA.  We did so much work there but the things that stand out were working at a halfway house, visiting elderly people, going thrift shopping, putting tire pieces on a playground,  working at a soup kitchen and learning how the organization worked throughout Chicago.  Thrift shopping was the most fun.  We were each given $5 to shop with and had to pick out as much as we could with that five dollars without going over.  We then had a fashion show to see who could get the most with their money.  The other was putting the tire pieces down on the playground.  We had a nice assembly line going and used the single black bucket (the rest were white) to keep track of how many buckets we used.  The first photo below is with our 100th black bucket (I'm in the white holding the bucket). We also had one free night in Chicago where we walked around and ate some of the famous deep dish pizza! The photo quality isn't very good because most of these were scanned.

My second trip to Chicago was in 2013.  My friend Heather was living there at the time for an internship and needed help moving back.  I flew out there and was only in Chicago for all of 8 hours before we started our drive back.  It was supposed to be longer but some other stuff came up and we had to cut it short.   We did get some sight seeing in and had a delicious lunch before getting on the road.  It was probably for the best because it was freaking freezing!!

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone Part 2

Way back at the beginning of the year, I talked about adventurous things I've done that have gotten me out of my comfort zone.  I have had this post in my drafts for months and completely forgot about it.  So, today I want to talk about other situations (mostly social situations) that made me uncomfortable but that had such an impact on my life.

Living with a host family in France
This was a scary experience for me at first.  I was very nervous when I learned that I would be spending a few days with a French family, especially since I didn't speak a word of French other than the key phrases I learned before the trip.  It was a little awkward at first but ended up being one of my favorite experiences in Europe!  It was such a great learning experience and Miti was definitely an interesting lady, we ended up having a lot of fun!  I wrote more about my homestay here.  Kara (pictured below with Miti), a girl from my group, was with me during my homestay, so we helped each other out quite a bit.  

Visiting the Elderly in Chicago
I am very uncomfortable around old people especially if they are ill.  Don't ask me why, I just am.  So when my youth pastor announced what we would be doing one evening while in Chicago, I was petrified.  The only thing that made it better was that we were going in groups of four. We were to go up to the upper floors of JPUSA's building and talk with the elderly who lived there.  This ended up being a great experience.  After being told to go away by several people, one old man finally agreed to talk to us, his name was Lenny.  I don't have anything written down about this experience and no photos, but it's something I'll always remember.  We walked into his room and he had a TON of dolls, which seems like an odd collection for a man, but every doll had a story.  We actually ended up staying longer than we had to because his stories were so interesting.   Lenny had stories from all over the world and definitely added to my love of travel.  This was a great lesson for me in respecting and learning from my elders.

Working with children who didn't speak English
 I always get a little nervous in a situation where I'm around a lot of people who don't speak English.  With adults it's not too big of a deal but kids sometimes don't understand that you don't know what they're saying. Though it did get a little frustrating at times, our few hours working with the kids in Costa Rica was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  The kids were so eager to learn and so excited that we were there.  After teaching them some English, we played games and had snacks with them and had so much fun.

All of these experiences turned out to be amazing and totally life changing.  I wouldn't change any of these experiences for anything.

Travel Tuesday: The Roadtrip From Hell ...

.... but it didn't start out that way.  

The trip was supposed to be simple.  Drive from Chicago to Cleveland and Cleveland to Maryland.  12 hours total drive time.  Not hard.  Unless you are me and Heather. 

First, we got 50 million phone calls from people saying not to go through Cleveland because it's supposed to snow really bad.   Fabulous.  We already had a non-refundable hotel there.  Well, we decided to go there anyway ... except we put home in the GPS and didn't check the GPS route. 

The GPS had us going South through Indiana instead of straight across and we realized it three hours into the trip.  So, like it or not, we weren't going to Cleveland.   Other than that disappointment the trip was actually pretty easy.  We stopped for dinner around 8 and switched seats (Heather drove the first part).  

We didn't have any issues until around midnight when we got to the Columbus area.  At this point we were just planning to drive straight through and get home around 5am.   The weather had other plans for us.   Right when we hit Columbus it started getting really windy and slightly snowy.  Poor little Tin Can (that's Heather's car) was not doing well in that so we decided to stop for a few hours to sleep and let the salt trucks do their thing ... this is when it got bad.

Enter Hotels.com.  The bane of my existence that night.  I had always had good experiences with H.com until that night.  So, we wanted something close and cheap since we were only planning on sleeping for maybe 4 hours. I went online and found a room at red roof that had a room with two beds for $35.  While red roof was less then ideal, we didn't care at that point, so I booked it in the parking lot.

You would think that since it was available online that the room would actually be available.  We'll you'd be thinking wrong.  No, I walked in and the lady looked up my reservation and says, well I have it here but we only have king bed rooms available, so if you just call H.com and tell them to change the booking, we can get you in a room.  Ok, no big deal.  UNTIL h.com tells me that I have to pay the additional cost of the room!

OH HELL NO!  I flipped out!  There was no way in Hell I was paying an extra $40 because of their mistake.  Needless to say, I was not happy!  I gave up trying to talk to the lady on the phone because she hardly spoke English and I was just tired and over it!

I did write a nice little letter when I got home and they did actually give me credit for the extra that I paid.  So now I'm not as irritated as I was.   Moving on.  We slept til about 5am and headed out again.  This is where it gets interesting.

Ohio and West VA were pretty much uneventful.  It was a bit snowy but nothing too crazy. 

Then PA.  Oh PA, if I never see you again it will be too soon (funny because I live 5 mins from the border).   We were looking at the GPS and it was telling us to go south into Baltimore then back up to Bel Air.  WHY?  No.  We decided to look at Google maps and see if there was a better way.  And there was ... so we thought.

We got to the road that was supposed to go straight across from the Pittsburgh area to Harrisburg then straight down to HarCo.  Well, silly Google maps forgot to tell us that the road we were headed towards was the fricken turnpike!!  The exit we were supposed to get off on would have cost us $17!!

Ugh.  So, the GPS tells us to get off on an exit a few miles down which only costs $2.  Whatever, we decide to just follow the stupid GPS.  Which worked fine until we decided to stop at Sheetz for some food.  It was snowing and we had to go over a Mountain.   Well, that ended up not being too bad.  Until it had us turn on some random dirt road!

 It took me an hour to go 2.4 miles because it was so hilly and curvy.  We seriously thought we were going to die.  Oh, fun fact about PA?  They don't like to plow their roads!  We were seriously sweet talking her car, "good tin can, don't die tin can".   So, after we got off the scary road and after another few miles we finally end up on Highway 68 and it was smooth sailing from there, thank goodness!  I don't think our nerves could have taken much more!

We were never so happy to see this Maryland sign!  and salt covered roads!  I think Heather may have a picture of the scary dirt road, if she does then I'll post it.

We were on the road for a good 24 hours between the time we left Chicago and the time we pulled up at my Mom's house.  Even looking back now I find some of this kind of funny, but we definitely didn't find it funny then!

And that is the story of our road trip from Chicago to MD.

Restaurant Review: The Grand Lux Cafe - Chicago

The only meal we ate in Chicago was lunch.  Before leaving Heather's apartment, she asked her roommate for lunch recommendations.  She told us we HAD to go to the Grand Lux Cafe, located on Michigan Avenue (aka the Magnificent Mile).

Via
 

LOCATION: The restaurant is actually located on the second floor and is assessable through a door on the right side of the building (the the view pictured). 
600 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611

 ATMOSPHERE:  The Grand Lux is beautifully decorated throughout!  There was definitely a mix of Italian and Modern and I loved it.  There was also huge windows throughout the entire cafe.  No matter where you were sitting, you had an amazing view of Chicago!

SERVICE:  The staff was great!  The host, server and food runner were all very pleasant.  Our server was great and very friendly.  He also knew the menu very well.  I had some questions about ingredients and he was able to answer all of them.

EFFICIENCY:  When we walked in there was one group ahead of us making a reservation but after that we were seated right away. Our server came to greet us within 2 minutes and got our drinks to us quickly as well.  Our food took approximately 15 minutes which is reasonable for what we ordered.  We also had bread delivered almost immediately after we placed our order.

PRICE: My first thought when walking in was, ummm ... how are we affording this?
  Once we were seated, I immediately grabbed a menu to look at the prices and Heather and I were pleasantly surprised.  It was a little pricier than I usually go for lunch, but it was definitely reasonable.

  
This was the view from where Heather and I were sitting.

FOOD: I got Fettuccine Alfredo which was delicious.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture before I started eating, but it looked amazing when it came out.  The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the shrimp.  They were just too big and way too expensive ($1.00 per shrimp), I would get the chicken next time.

Would I recommend the Grand Lux?  Absolutely!  We really enjoyed our meal, the service was great and we just loved the atmosphere.

Rating:  A

Travel Tuesday: Chicago 2013

Our adventure driving from Chicago to Maryland was interesting, to say the least.  We never made it to Cleveland and I'm pretty sure the woman at the hotel we decided to stop at almost called the cops on me.  Let's just say, I don't think I'll ever be using Hotels.com again, but I'll share that story next week.

Today, I'm going to share the 8 hours that we spent in Chicago before heading out on our adventure.   My flight from BWI was at 6:15am.  I was obviously thrilled to be waking up at 2:45 in the morning.   The flight was on time and really smooth, thankfully.  It also went by surprisingly quick, though really it was only 2 hours long. 

I arrived at Chicago Midway at 7:15 (time change) and Heather picked me up from the airport.  We headed to her apartment to drop my stuff off and chill out for a few minutes before playing tourists.

Unfortunately, it was super cloudy and we didn't think it would be worth it to do the Sky Deck at Willis Tower, so we skipped that.  We did head to Millennium Park to see the Bean, of course!

We walked around the rest of Millennium Park as well. I really want to visit Chicago again when it's warmer and all of the fountains are going.

We decided our next stop should be Navy Pier.  Unfortunately, they were doing construction so it was a bit underwhelming.   We did spend some time inside getting warm and buying my souvenirs.

After Navy Pier we walked Michigan Avenue and stopped for lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe which I will be writing about tomorrow.  Love that place!!

And a few Random Chicago pictures: