All posts by Andi

Bloggings, Food Blog, Snorkeling, Travel

Belize-Placencia Village

July 29, 2012 Andi Leave a comment

We woke up today pretty early around 7 but just laid in bed kind of fell back asleep until 8ish. Then we decided to go out and snorkel for a bit since the water was calm.

Before getting in the water a woman approached me and asked if we were staying here. She said she had hitch-hiked from Placencia. Then she asked if I wanted to look at her crafts. I told her I had no money on me now so maybe later. When we got in the water we didn’t see much because it’s mostly sand. Then we saw a few fish and we were getting further out and I heard Don say “Andi come back!” We’ve been snorkeling quite a bit in our lives and I’ve never heard him say this so I was scared…like was there a shark?? So I just started swimming back to shore fast. In my head I was a little disappointed on the swim back like…”man if there was a shark out there and he just made us swim like this and draw all this attention to us!!” I wanna see a shark so bad and if it’s far away and you just stay calm it should be alright…but we when got closer to shore he told me he saw a big jellyfish and I was swimming right for it. So that ended our snorkeling this morning.

Then we came back in and got cleaned up for breakfast. Don had a dish called Belizian Fried Jacks. It had black beans, scrambled eggs and these pastry like things. I had a Bacon Egg Burger. It was good. It was just bacon and 2 eggs over easy on ciabatta bread. During breakfast we could see the woman spreading out all her jewelry and trinkets on the beach to sell.

After breakfast we talked to the hotel owner about our tours. Now I think we are adding another snorkeling trip. It sounds pretty awesome. We also made friends with the Maya Beach Hotel cat..

Then we decided to take the bus to Placencia Village. While waiting for it though….guess who caught us. The woman selling her crafts. She was also waiting for the bus. But she convinced us to look at her items. I ended up buying a bracelet for $10, because I am a sucker. The bus came around 12:15 and you get on by waving it down. It was an old school bus painted blue and it said “Richies Bus” on it. The ride was $1 per person. It took us to the end of the peninsula.

Once we got off the bus we walked around a bit. We looked at the beaches and then just walked around. It was sooo hot! We decided there wasn’t really much there so we planned to take the bus back at 2:30, which is the last bus of the day on Sunday. We decided we wanted to try a different restaurant so we tried a place called Wendy’s. It was good. The quesadilla I had was great.

After that we walked the town some more just basically waiting for the bus. The bus was so crowded on the way back but the driver dropped us right off at our hotel. Can’t really beat the price of $1 for a bus ride.

Once we got back I wanted to go for another swim….so we went back out to the beach and snorkeled again. We love snorkeling. We didn’t really see anything too crazy just a few fish here and there. The water felt so good, it’s so nice and warm. After our swim we got cleaned up again and decided to walk about a mile to a different restaurant.

On the walk there the hotel owner saw us and said she would give us a lift. That was nice of her. The restaurant was Mangos and it looked really cool. The food was good. I had nachos. Don had fried chicken. The problem was when the food came immediately we were surrounded by flies. It was so annoying. We just ate so fast. I feel like all we did today was eat hahaha.

We had to walk back and it was pretty dark. But it was a nice walk. When we got to the hotel the whole front of the building had little lizards on it.

Now we are back and we are just getting ready for our excursion tomorrow to the ruins.

Bloggings, Travel

Belize-Getting There

July 28, 2012 Andi Leave a comment

Today we woke up around 3 am so we could make it to our 6 am flight at ohare. We got to the airport and our flight was on time….so nothing really crazy to tell from Ohare.

We had our connection flight in Dallas/Fort Worth. We ate breakfast at a taco bar. It was pretty good. Then an alarm started going off. It was a siren with a computerized voice saying “There has been an emergency reported in the building. Please stand by for further instruction.” No one knew what was going on and it just kept repeating over and over. Finally a real voice came on and said the emergency was taken care of so to keep going about business. Even though he said this the alarm continued to go on until we boarded our flight for Belize.

We sat in the aisle that had 3 seats so we were sitting next to a woman. She had the window seat. Eventually one of her friends came and told her they had an open seat by them so she could sit next to them. I was excited because then we would have a giant space…but when I moved over to her seat it was a little damp and kind of smelled like urine, not really sure. Luckily I only touched the seat with my hand…and I had hand sanitizer. So for the flight we did not use that window seat. It was funny though because I saw her when I was exiting the plane and she said “You didn’t sit in that seat did you?” and I said “no” and she was like “good because it made my pants damp”…..

So then we made our way into the airport to go through customs. There was a live band playing some music. That was a first for me at an airport.

When we made it through customs and met our driver, Abraham. He took us to his truck. Abraham drove us 3 hours to Placencia…we had a private ride. It was cool. He told us things about Belize on the way. We stopped at a grocery store to get some drinks. It was so weird. It was a Chinese owned grocery store in the middle of no where.

The whole ride to the hotel all I could think was this place has really nothing but jungle.

I didn’t really know what to expect but it is just land with trees, very rural. We even saw Amish! Abraham told us the Amish settled here about 50 years ago.

We finally made it to Maya Beach Hotel and got settled in. Our room is the Hummingbird Room and we saw a hummingbird outside our window!

We walked by the beach and relaxed on the deck for awhile. Then we had dinner at the Bistro here at the hotel. We had Spicy Fish Empanadas for an appetizer and we both had burgers for dinner. We also enjoyed a Belizian beer.

It was really good.

After dinner it was only like 8 but we went back to the room for bed!

Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews

Beggars Pizza Review – 3413 N. Clark, Chicago IL

April 19, 2012 Andi Leave a comment

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Recently we went to Beggars Pizza on Clark Street in Chicago. We were walking home after a comedy show and since I hadn’t eaten dinner yet a slice of pizza sounded good and fast.

So…Beggars Pizza has a sign outside saying “Open Late” and “Pizza Slices”. It was only about 10 pm so they were open. When I walked in I noticed there were no pizzas sitting out like at a regular NYC pizzeria. There was this small spinning heater looking thing that had some pizza in it.

I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza. The guy said all we have is cheese left. Seriously? You advertise yourself as having slices of pizza and you only have 2 slices of cheese at 10 pm? Even Sbarro has at least 4 different kinds of pizzas ready to be sliced up for you at any given time. It’s bad when you start comparing a pizzeria to Sbarro. And what pizzeria can’t throw a couple of slices of pepperoni on a plain slice, heat up, and serve? But let’s just get this straight…Beggars Pizza is NOT a pizzeria. Don’t go here expecting to get a decent slice of pizza. There’s no where for them to even keep pizzas. Just a small spinning microwave looking thing.

So onto the slice. I ordered the cheese because I was starving and I didn’t have anything else to choose from. It looked and tasted like it had been sitting under a fry lamp all day. It wasn’t terrible but maybe that’s just because I was so hungry. It’s possible that if the pizza was fresh, it might have been better than Pizza Hut or Dominos. But only by a small margin. That’s not really saying much when you compare a pizza place to a chain like Pizza Hut. Maybe if I would have ordered delivery from this place it would have been different. I wouldn’t have been disappointed with the lack of slices and the freshness of the pizza….but seriously…how about you just don’t advertise yourself as having slices if you don’t have slices.

Beggars Pizza you are not that good.

Bloggings, Reviews, Reviews - Movies

Movie Review-The Hunger Games

March 27, 2012 Andi Leave a comment

So like many people I’ve been waiting for months for The Hunger Games movie. The books were great and I was really excited to see how the movie would portray the books. I’m not usually one to read books and see the movie, usually I just see the movie and forget about the book. The book is usually way better than the movie and I just hate comparing the two, so this was sort of a new thing for me. But besides all of this, my review will have spoilers for the movie and the book, so read at your own risk!

First off I will say the movie is definitely not as good as the book. The beginning was good with being able to see District 12 and Katniss and Gale hunting. I think most of these scenes were satisfying. Although I wish they would have showed a little bit more of life in the Seam. I felt the relationship between Gale and Katniss was pretty well displayed with it being a bit awkward in that they both were not willing to put forth their feelings.

They did change the part with the mayor’s daughter giving Katniss the mockingjay pin. Greasy Sae at the Hob gave her the pin. But I feel changing this didn’t really effect the movie or the story that much. Although I do believe, in the book the mayor’s daughter gives Katniss the pin after she has volunteered for the reaping and it goes into what a mockingjay is. I guess what they were trying to do was cut down movie time with having to introduce the mayor’s daughter and all of that so some people may be a bit disappointed by the importance of this pin being downplayed, but I think it was fine.

The reaping scene in the movie was probably for me the most moving part of the movie. You can feel the fear and terror of the kids especially Prim. Prim was excellent. You feel all of the emotion of Prim being picked and her older sister volunteering to take her place. The part was very well done. I actually felt teary eyed because I got to thinking about what if this were me and my sister? I was surprised to see they didn’t show Haymitch falling around on stage. After thinking about this I think they decided to wait to introduce Haymitch because people who have not read the book might be confused as to who this person is on stage drunk and falling down.

From here until the games was where the movie kind of flawed. There were parts I really enjoyed seeing like the scenes with Cinna and Katniss. I think they focused too many scenes on the training though. I think one scene of training would have been enough. I would have liked to see more of the games rather than the training.

The scenes of the games felt very short and not really rewarding. I don’t know if this would have been different if I didn’t read the book or not. You didn’t see Katniss dehydrated for a couple of days in search of water. It felt very rushed. The relationship between Rue and Katniss was there but not nearly like it was in the book. When Rue died, it was sad but the sadness was nowhere near what I felt when reading the book. I think they could have spent a little more time developing this relationship. The moment when it’s announced there could be 2 victors from a district win was also downplayed by Katniss only whispering “peeta” instead of screaming it like in the book. I know this is small but show some emotion! She doesn’t seem that excited about this at all. Of course she finds Peeta easily…I know the movie only has so much time but she barely had to look. The time spent in the cave with Katniss and Peeta is so short. I didn’t feel there was a relationship at all. No connection. They kissed like twice. Believe me I didn’t want this movie to turn into a Twilight with 2 different love interests, but I did want to see what I thought the books portrayed. Katniss and Peeta were supposed to be all lovey-dovey, kissing and making a show for the audience.

The absolute most disappointing part of the movie though was the final battle in the games with the muttutions, Cato, Katniss, and Peeta. They didn’t have Peeta get bit on the leg. Peeta was supposed to be bleeding to death and Katniss made a tourniquet to save his life. Peeta didn’t even look winded. Peeta is supposed to be near death! They took out the scene with the hovercraft picking them up and Katniss screaming for Peeta while he was being worked on by doctors. This would have been a very emotional awesome scene….but completely left out. I wonder why?

Throughout the movie they showed the gamemakers controlling the game. I thought this was cool. You didn’t get any of this from the book but I think it would really help someone understand more about the Capital if they were only seeing the movie.

Overall the movie was good. I wasn’t disappointed too much because I didn’t have high expectations. I think if you go into this thinking it’s going to effect you as much as the book did you will be extremely disappointed. I think all of the characters were pretty well portrayed. There wasn’t anyone that I was disappointed in. I hope in the next movie they elaborate more on the relationships between the characters. I know I will be seeing the next one! Happy Hunger Games!

Bloggings, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews - Techie, Travel

Chicago to Missouri

March 5, 2012 Andi Leave a comment

On Friday we left early to go to Columbia, MO. This was our first road trip in the new Fiesta. We were supposed to come up with a name for the new car on this trip but I think we kind of forgot about it. The drive from Chicago to Columbia is about 6 hours. And it rained/snowed off and on the whole way!

We made a stop in Springfiled, IL to stop at a diner Don had seen on TV. It was called Charlie Parker’s Diner. The diner was cool because it was in an old building from WW2 called a Quonset Hut. I had the country fried steak special and Don had the breakfast horseshoe. The food was pretty good. I think the atmosphere was a little better though.

We made it to Columbia around 4 pm and we killed some time doing a little shopping. Then we met up with Judy and Steve and went to dinner. We ate at Murray’s Restaurant. We had to wait for a bit but we had some drinks at the bar. Don and I both had steaks. It was delicious.

The next day we woke up early to head to Saint Louis (about 2 hours from Columbia). Don and Steve wanted to check out the Star Trek exhibit at the Science Center in STL. But first we had to stop at Pappy’s Smokehouse. This place was awesome!!! I ordered a pulled pork sandwich with potato salad and baked beans. Freaken delicious. If you are gonna go make sure to get there early. We got there right at 11 when it opened and still had to wait about 30 to 40 min. The food was soooo good!!

After Pappy’s we went to the Science Center. I have never really watched Star Trek but the exhibit was okay. There was a lot of stuff to read about space exploration that was pretty interesting. After the exhibit we walked around a bit, but most of the exhibits seemed to be pretty geared towards kids, so we left to check out the arch. I really wanted to go up into the arch but the wait was long and it was getting late in the day. So we just took some pictures and next time we will go up in it!

Then we drove back to Columbia. We picked up Judy (she had to work during the day) and decided where to have dinner. We decided on 44 Stone Public House. It was an English/Irish bar. They had an amazing beer selection. I couldn’t resist and had to get a Strongbow and an Old Speckled Hen. We shared a couple appetizers. Then I had a burger. After eating we decided to keep drinking and make a fire at the house. It was a little chilly out but next to the fire it was nice.

Once we woke up on Sunday we got ready to head back home. We made a stop in Springfield again to visit a store called Scheels. It’s like a sports/outdoors store. It was pretty cool. But we were really excited to try an Irish restaurant called D’arcy’s Pint. Little did we know it was closed on Sundays. So disappointing but I’m sure we will be cutting through Springfield again in the future to visit Missouri. So we couldn’t decide what to eat, nothing sounded good. There were fast food places nearby and I said either Arby’s or Pizza Hut sounded good. We decided on Pizza Hut since we haven’t had it in forever…..ugh I remember why I never Pizza Hut. It’s okay while you’re eating it, not so good later. So I was burping Pizza Hut the rest of the way home.

I noticed some things when we crossed the border from Missouri into Illinois. Immediately the price of gas went up 40 cents. There were tons of political/election signs. And a lot more traffic signs including tons of No Parking Signs on the side of the highway, which was highway 54. Seriously…there was nothing on this highway, why in the world would there have to be no parking signs here?! The middle of no where! Even if someone did park there why would anyone care?! I guess that’s just Illinois for you.

GarbledSyntax