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Bloggings, Food Blog, Snorkeling, Travel

Belize-Placencia Village

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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..
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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.  
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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.  
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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.

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Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews

Beggars Pizza Review – 3413 N. Clark, Chicago IL

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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, Food Blog, Reviews - Techie

Does coffee always smell better than it tastes?

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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.

Bloggings, Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews, Reviews - Techie

The word of the day is… CRAZY.

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So I decided to stop and eat at McDonald’s today on Clark Street…probably one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had at a Mcdonald’s so far. Picture a scene in a movie where it’s supposed to be just a regular event like a party, or a wedding, or an ordinary drive to work or something….but it’s just gone completely chaotic. But to make it seem more normal there’s calming classical music playing in the scene. There was actually classical music playing loudly at this Mcdonald’s…like really…when has that ever been happening?!

When I walked in it was like being in a nursing home…all these crazy old men sitting alone at tables saying random phrases and just sounding crazy. People just dropping stuff. There was a mentally disabled boy screaming “I want mustard, I want mustard…” and just screaming. One of the old men was saying “Someone needs to give that boy a whipping!” Over and over and over. Then another old man kept backing up his motorized wheelchair into people. It was literally a crazy house.

I was going to get my order to go, but after seeing so many crazy people in one building at once, I decided to sit and relax with my meal and take in the blaring classical music and the old man occasionally complaining about the boy that wouldn’t stop screaming. Entertainment.

Bloggings, Food Blog, Restaurant Reviews

Las Tablas Colombian Steakhouse.

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http://www.lastablas.com/#!about-us

So Don and I decided to eat here tonight and it was great!! It was about a 20 minute walk to the restaurant. We ordered the empanadas for an appetizer. There were 3 kinds: cheese, beef, and chicken. We couldn’t eat all of them so we brought some home!! They were very good! I think the cheese one was the best. Out of all the empanadas I’ve had though I’d probably rate them a 3.5 out of 5 only because the ones with meat didn’t really have any taste to them…they needed some spice or something.

We both ordered steak…of course. I got the Entrana Steak (skirt steak) with beans, rice and a sweet plantain. Don got the Bandeja Paisa, which was a Colombian style rib-eye steak with rice, beans, a fried egg and a plantain. He loved his and my steak was great!! So tasty and juicy. We were stuffed.

This place is a little pricey. It was $60 for two of us, but we had an appetizer and one mojito-like drink. But worth it. I really wanna take my dad here because I think he would really like the steak! I would rate it a 4/5, because it was pricey and I didn’t think the empanadas were the best. Other than that though….it was great so check it out. So one restaurant down, a lot more to go!