Of Chicago, Penguins, and Stunts

So today I was listening to "Why is the Rum Gone" remix for Pirates of the Caribbean on youtube. It's pretty epic. There's also one for Lord of the Rings, called "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard." These never get old.So my boyfriend is with me now. We had a splendid weekend in Chicago. Mostly splendid, at least. He called me when his bus was going to get off in ten minutes so me and my dad were like HOLY CRAP and ran and took the taxi to pick him up. He got off a minute or so before we got there, but it was all good.
It was so.. weird... to see him again, We hadn't seen each other in over 3 months and after a time like that it's almost like I was looking at a hologram. For several hours I just felt like I needed to be constantly pinched.



We went to see Cloud 9, a circus performance by a Chinese troupe at Navy Pier. It was their first and only visit to America, and so this was a pretty special event. Some of the stuff they did at the performance included...

One man pedaling a bike in a circle with ten people on top/hanging on to the bike

Three men riding motorcycles inside a spherical cage.. all driving inside the cage(yes, upside down and everything) and NOT running into each other (by the way the size of this sphere is about the radius of two bikes, NOT that big)

A woman balancing on one foot on the man's shoulder, and then on his head. (Not just balancing, but in ballet shoes, with her other leg out in the ballet pose.. I fail at remembering names for these things)

This guy juggled a knife, an apple, and a ladle, and at the end caught the knife pointing up so that the apple got stabbed and stayed on it.

At the beginning two girls were laying with their backs on chairs and their feet in the air, and then they each caught a coffee table with their feet and tossed them up a goof 8 feet in the air and then spun them around so fast you couldn't make out the table legs (all of this with only their feet)

So.. you get the picture. There was some crazy stuff. I enjoyed it, so did Stephen. We even bought an asian lantern for 5 bucks, and got some of the performers signatures on it. It was a good time.





The next day we went to an aquarium, which was also fun but not as cool as the circus. We saw this 4D version of planet earth, basically meaning it was 3d but also with like stuff in the seats so that they could... spray you with water, have little spikes come out of your seat, spout bubbles from the back of peoples seats, make fake snow, imitate wind, ... I don't think I'm missing anything but yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. But it was only 15 minutes long.

Quote from my boyfriend as he plays Half Life : "What could be better than attaching people to walls?"

I don't know.. attaching them to ceilings? Apparently he has done that before.

We saw some pretty freaky fish at the aquarium. There's the fish with noses that look like zombies. There's the sawfish shark that has a saw-looking mouth. There's.. bright fish, spiky fish, flat fish, giant crab fish, big creepy looking eels, giant eye fish, glowy eye fish, transparent fish. SO MANY FISH!

But my favorite part of the aquarium was the penguins. They were so freaking adorable. While we watched them they kept hopping up their little mini mountain thingy and then trying to decide if they could jump down from the top. My mom kept shouting "jump, jump, you can do it!" The penguin never jumped, but they kept hopping back to the mountain together. Then at the end all three of them hopped up in a row. It was sooo cute! I have pictures. Check out my deviantart.. I will put them up eventually, probably soon.



Then we saw the fireworks in Chicago. They were pretty boss, but only lasted about 15 minutes. They made hearts and smiley faces with the fireworks, so that was pretty cute. Then we watched Starsky and Hutch as well as Charlies Angels 2. It was pretty amusing. We also ate dark chocolate tart from this fancy ass marketplace that sold jams for 15 dollars and a pack of like 4 tea bags for the same price. But everything looked SO good.


Overall, Chicago was fun, but we were glad to be back in Cleveland after a 6 hour drive the next day that mostly consisted of sleeping. Now we're just been playing video games with Stephen trying to pin enemies to the ceiling with his fancy weapon that shoots heated metal rods. I think I will probably bust out my game, Fable, because I quite enjoy it. It's kind of your typical fantasy RPG where you can go on quests and explore towns and buy better weapons/items and build up your character to fit whoever you want them to be. Right now my character is kind of evil. It's fun stuff.




The way to Chicago was mildly crazy, especially once we got into the city because we got lost on this random road and my mom called the hotel asking for help and she must have repeated to the lady on the phone where we were like 20 times. OHIO STREET, YES, WE'RE ON OHIO STREET. IT'S A ONE WAY ROAD, AND AHEAD OF US THERES SOME KIND OF HIGHWAY THING WHERE YOU CAN ONLY TURN LEFT.

The lady kept being like "turn around"

"WE CAN'T!"

My mom was like screaming at her in frustration.

My conclusion from all this: black slang and russian accents do not go together


The irony? We live in Ohio and we got lost on Ohio Street.