All posts by Andi

The Walking Dead.

Every Sunday Don and I watch The Walking Dead. For the past several Sundays I have felt the same way when the show ends: unsatisfied. Nothing ever happens! Tonight’s episode in particular proved this.

I loved the first season and couldn’t wait for the second to start. But once they got stuck at this freaken farm the show took a turn for the boring. Every episode it was the same thing. The first half of the season was spent looking for the missing girl, only to find she was a locked up zombie in the barn. It sucked they killed her but I thought “yay, now we can move on with the plot! Let’s get off this farm!”

No….the next episodes were spent with everyone in a depression and trying to figure out if they would have to leave the farm. Now after getting into a fight in the town and bringing home an injured teen, we have to get rid of this teen. First of all…why we have to get rid of him is a joke. We nursed this kid back to health and now were going to just set him off to die on his own. When they could just keep the kid and move on from this freaken farm.

So the whole last episode was focused on Rick and Shane fighting over Lori and trying to ditch this kid. By the end of the episode we still have the kid….and is the fight over between Rick and Shane…probably not. Can’t wait for next week for part 2 of the episode where Rick and Shane will attempt to get rid of the kid again and try not to get themselves killed in the process. Then they will return to the farm with no plan. If this show was real, all of these people would be dead.

And yet I keep watching every week. Maybe there’s still hope.

Does coffee always smell better than it tastes?

So I’ve never been a coffee drinker.  Neither me nor Don has really ever been a coffee drinker.  The rest of my family-coffee drinkers. So every time my parents came up here my mom would always be like “you guys need a coffee maker”.  To me a coffee maker just seemed like a useless appliance for us that would just take up space.  For the pleasure of my mom we put “coffee maker” on our wedding registry.  Luckily, Don’s work got it for us.

Before I talk about this coffee maker, let me just explain a few things. First, I’ve never used one.  Second, not too long ago I was the type of person who went to starbucks and got nervous because I had no idea what to order.  But probably within the last year or two I’ve found a few favorites there: Caramel Macchiato, Cafe Mocha, or my favorite Peppermint Mocha.  So when I think of having coffee I want a good flavored coffee, so really not coffee at all. In fact I’d rather just have a Dr. Pepper but since we’ve been eating better this has not been in my diet every day.  And neither has starbucks…it’s just a treat every once in awhile.

So back to this coffee maker. I was very unsure about just buying regular flavored coffee so I bought a bag of some french caramel flavored coffee.  I can’t remember the brand.  The first time I made the coffee, it was a bit confusing for me. I had some issues with the instructions pertaining to the coffee filter.  Since the coffee maker has it’s own filter but it’s still recommended to use paper ones, it was confusing to me where to put the actual coffee grounds.  I know this probably sounds stupid, but if you’ve never used a coffee maker and you read these instructions you would see what I mean.  Believe me, I even showed my parents the instructions when I explained to them my difficulties.  They also said “okay maybe if you’ve never in your life made coffee this sounds confusing”.  Maybe they were just trying to make me feel better.

So the first couple pots of coffee had a few coffee grains in it.  Big deal okay, I’m new to this.  Every time I was using the coffee pot though I just felt uneasy about it.  I don’t know why.  Up until recently, probably since I stopped relying on Dr Pepper, I decided to give this coffee thing a real shot.  Especially since I read that black coffee is not bad for you, calorie wise.  One morning before work I made 4 cups of coffee and accidentally ended up drinking pretty much all of it.  It just went down so easy in the morning.  And I was getting used to the taste (not to mention it makes the apartment smell super good).  After having so much coffee I felt so energized.  It was crazy!  It made me want to experiment more with this coffee maker.

Now I’m not having 4 cups of coffee every day before work, don’t worry.  In fact, I try not to have it all.  I just don’t want to have to rely on something to make me feel good.  So I only have it if I feel I really need it.  But that’s besides the point, today we went to the grocery store and I told Don we need to buy more coffee.  I wanted to try different kinds.  We ended up buying 4 different kinds.  Mainly because the starbucks brand had a sale of buying 3 and get them for $6. We bought: Cafe Bustelo (because Don’s mom always used to make it), Starbucks Vanilla, Starbucks Caramel, and Starbucks Espresso Roast.

When we got home I decided to have a coffee tasting night.  So far we have tried the Vanilla and the Caramel.  Both are good.  I don’t really know if I notice a difference between the two.  I don’t think we will try the other 2 tonight.  So the coffee maker has went from a useless appliance to somewhat more of a friend.  Right now I’m kind of enjoying this new outlook on coffee.  I still think though, it smells better than it tastes.

Zombie Dream.

last night i had a dream we (don and i)  were running away from whatever city we lived in because it was overtaken by zombies.  we had left a few of our friends back at our apartment, locked in the basement because they had been bitten.  i think one of them was sheva from resident evil 5 hahaha.  even though people were turning into zombies they could still talk and we were looking for a cure.  we decided we need to go back to our apartment so we did and it was weird.  we were just living in this apartment with our zombie friends in the basement locked up.  the people that were left in the town were trying to resume to normal life, stores were reopening.  once in awhile a herd of zombies would come in and attack.  then our lock on our door broke.  i had to go to ace hardware to get a new lock.  we couldn’t figure out how to fix it and at one point zombies were trying to break in.  don was stabbing them with a knife and i had a pair of scissors…then i woke up..it was weird.

Honeymoon-Sightseeing in Athens, Acropolis, Plaka, and Protests!

Today we woke up at 645 so we could be ready to be picked up at 8 for our Athens sightseeing excursion. The bus drove us by many of the sites and then we got out at the new acropolis museum. We had a guided tour through the museum and then we were free to roam for awhile until we walked up to the acropolis. The museum was cool, outside you could see the archaeologists working underneath the museum..here’s a picture.
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The walk to the acropolis was pretty amazing. The sights were so beautiful and a little scary because the marble was slick! We took a lot of pictures.
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And then came down for lunch in the plaka. The plaka was the first place where we had people begging us for money. Mostly children begging. At the restaurant where we ate children would come up to you and play music for money, but the restaurant staff kept kicking them out. It was sad. The meal that I had here though was one of my favorites in Greece, stewed meatballs and rice.

We had the rest of the day to do whatever so we decided to take the tram and go to the coast. It was hard for us to figure out how to pay for the tram but I guess we did it right! We rode to the end but there wasn’t really anything there so we got back on and got off at a marina. The marina was beautiful and had a nice little mall. We left the marina and walked the coast for a bit. We saw people fishing, swimming and snorkeling. It made me want to snorkel!
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Of course on our walk we found cats!
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Then we took the train back to the plaka right in front of the parliament building. There was a protest happening here and it was cool to see. There were tons of police and riot police. Luckily it wasn’t violent.
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Then we walked back to the hotel and started packing. Around 830 we saw a sign saying there would be a strike for cabs and all public transportation the next day. We were a little worried this would interfere with our ride to the airport. Luckily there was a Gate 1 representative at the front desk and she told us not to worry they would send a private bus to pick us up.
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We went to a little place and got some gyros and beer to bring back to the hotel for our last night in Greece. It was the best gyro I’ve ever had; even though I’ve only had a few…it was amazing! It was hard to believe our honeymoon was ending, it was amazing. I never dreamed I would go to Greece for my honeymoon. It was the best experience. After eating we went to sleep to await our 230 wake up call to go to the airport.

Honeymoon-Mykonos to Athens, by air. Dinner with a view of the Acropolis

We woke up around 8 today and got packed to go to Athens. While I was packing and Don was in the shower I heard a strange noise. The little orange cat had gotten through our patio door and was hanging out in the hotel room. I loved this cat! He was so cute. We played with the cat for a little while and then went to breakfast. Then we did a little photo shoot with the cat and of our cute balcony. I really loved Hotel Despotiko. Everything about it was great.
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The bus picked us up around 10 to go to the airport for our flight to Athens. The flight was very short, maybe 30 minutes. It was totally worth upgrading to the flight instead of doing the 5 hour ferry ride.

When we arrived in Athens our guide found us and took us to a bus. On the 45 minute bus ride to the hotel she went over things. We checked in and looked around the hotel and then decided to venture down to the plaza. Here’s some pictures of Hotel Stanley and its views. The views from Hotel Stanley were spectacular. The room itself is very basic.
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We were told to take a taxi since the public transportation was on strike, but Don thought we could walk it. He was right; it was no more of a walk from our apartment in Lakeview to Downtown. We went to a restaurant close to the hotel because I was starving. It was pretty good. Then we walked and saw some sites. But we mainly saw shops. We had a beer at one of the restaurants and then walked back to the hotel. It was a good walk. But really Athens is just a city. It is unique though with all of its ruins.

We got back to the hotel and had dinner on the rooftop. I wanted to eat outside but it was so windy so we moved indoors. It was really cool because the Acropolis was lit up so after dinner we took a few pictures of it while having a drink .
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