Wisconsin Tripping

Last weekend I headed up to Wisconsin for some camping and whitewater rafting. It was a bit far (5 hours to the White Lake, WI area), but definitely worth it - figuratively and literally. Camping and rafting together cost only $50, with a similar tab for group food, drink, gas, and firewood.

I got the chance to go camping for the first time in a long time. The usual camping stuff happened: campfires, drinking, roasting, smores, and whatnot. It was definitely a nice change of pace from Chicago. It did get into the forties one night, but my sleeping bag kept me pretty warm actually. There were more stars out and more silence than I've ever experienced, including my time in southern Illinois. All that in itself was a pretty awesome experience.

As for rafting, it was a four hour trip on the Wolf River. There would've been a six hour trip, but the water level was too low. They claim that the rapids were classes three and four. It actually wasn't that overwhelming, considering I've never been before. The funnest parts were definitely the waterfalls and maneuvering around rocks. In contrast, the least fun involved de-wedging from getting stuck among rocks - you've sometimes gotta get out of the raft in rapids and push the raft. One, the rocks are slippery as hell; two, the rocks are not evenly distributed on the river bed; three, when you do de-wedge, you can't let the current take the raft without you. Regardless, the sets of rapids were definitely the highlight of the trip. Luckily, I never got tossed from the raft. Although, I did accidentally whack my rafting partner in the head with my oar. She had a nice welt to show for it at the end of trip.

Outisde of rapids, the river is pretty serene. It's really chill, relaxing, and beautiful. The only thing that sucked about the rest of the river was the low water level. At times, the water was so low that we had to get out and pull our raft since we were dragging.

I'd definitely go on another trip like this again. For the time and money, it was a blast. Similar to last week, I was pretty bummed about having to come back to med school. I would legitimately say I was slightly depressed about that fact. Guess that means I had a pretty good time though.

All Good Things

I just got back into Chicago after a few days in Southern Illinois. This event is nothing special, but it also leaves me a few hours from school starting back up. And this realization leaves a feeling of dread. I've never had more angst about a school year starting as I do now. The words angst and dread don't even sufficiently describe how I feel right now.

I've had an insanely chill and relaxed summer - mostly bumming out mixed with some travelling, biking, and imbibing. The *only* productive thing I did this summer was shadow an EM doc for a few hours. Shadowing aside, I was pretty far removed (in time, memory, and mindset) from anything med school. And now all of that is about to come crashing back into my life, on top of my last summer winding down. This is doubly unfortunate. (Yes, you're all free to call the whaambulance.) One more year of books. That's this year's motto. On a brighter note, I'll be heading up to Wisconsin for some camping and whitewater rafting this weekend. :D

The ATL

Between getting the chance to visit a close friend and checking out some southern culture, I decided to head down to Atlanta last weekend. It's only a ninety minute flight and I booked while it was still reasonably cheap.

The first night, we had dinner at Harmony, a vegetarian Chinese place. Ended up partaking in some duck, which was pretty tasty. I honestly couldn't tell that it was fake meat, which is saying something since I like meat. Hit up The Chocolate Bar for some dessert, and had some mighty good chocolate - "oreos and milk" (souffle stuffed with ganache and served with milk sorbet). As for grabbing drinks, we ended up around East Atlanta. Specifically at Smith's Olde Bar, Blind Willie's, and Dark Horse. The first two places featured live music, which is always nice. Only Blind Willie's had reasonable cover though, but at least it was a blues bar.

On a side note, there was an interesting version of designated driver roaming around. Some guy in an orange shirt wanders around with a motorbike looking for inebriated groups. On finding said people, he drives the group home in their own car, with the bike folded up in the trunk. Drop off passengers, collect money, retrieve bike, rinse & repeat. I thought it was interesting.

As for touristy stuff, that happened downtown. Wandered through the CNN center for a bit before heading off to Centennial Olympic Park. Ended up in the Fountain of Rings for awhile, although I was by far the driest of the group. Afterwards, we made our way to The World of Coke. They've got some cool stuff as far as the history and production of Coke goes. However, the highlight of the place was the tasting room - where you get to try sixty-four Coke products from around the world. Sixty four cups later, I decided most of it was pretty good and that I like apple soda. There were some disgusting flavors though, e.g. cough syrup and uncarbonated sugar water. Also, Fanta is kind of a big deal around the world, they've just got some weird flavors. Either way, my stomach was definitely hurting afterwards and I think I had a legitimate sugar crash on the train ride home. On that note, the MARTA (train) is a lot nicer and quieter than the L up here. And, it actually runs at full speed for the entire line. Nice.

Overall, Atlanta was a nice town to visit. I only heard "y'all" a few times and didn't really notice many southern accents. The town's a bit more sprawling than I expected, but if you're near a MARTA station you're good to go. Oh, and I met an amazing four year old. She's definitely sharper and more curious than I was at that age. Promising in that regard, but kinda saddening for other reasons too.

Storm City

Last Monday there were three sets of storms that hit around here. One in the morning kept me from going on a bike ride, an early evening one that almost caught me in a ride, and a later one that knocked out power and dropped a few inches of rain in less than an hour. That last storm was pretty intense - set off the city sirens (didn't even know we had those), spawned a few tornadoes, and had some 95 mph wind gusts.

The storm, power loss, and sirens actually didn't bother me. I wasn't too happy when the three inch drainage basin in front of my door overflowed though. Where to, you ask? Directly under my door and into 3/4 of my living room. Water came in for about fifteen minutes and was about an inch deep around the door. The only reason I knew about the water was because I almost slipped on some tile after tracking through it (the power was out).

I actually had stuff to do on Tuesday, so the only thing I could do was leave a fan blowing over part of the room. I'm pretty sure it didn't do anything other than circulate the stench and waste some power. Wednesday though, I ended up renting a carpet cleaner and first ran over the carpet with just suction. I was able to pull a few gallons out of the carpet, but it was definitely still wet. I ended up cleaning the room about four times with some cleaning solution and deodorizer. Between that, opening windows and doors, and blowing fans 24/7 the smell is slowly dissipating. Aaand, the carpet's actually drying out :D So yeah, water + carpet = suck.

After I realized my floor was wet. If only the water would've stayed in that area.

Brewtown

A friend and I headed up to Milwaukee for part of last weekend. Mainly to catch a Brewers game, but also for a German festival. The festival was entertaining enough for an afternoon. There were some German shows going on, although we only sat in on one about clothing. Apparently colors of various accessories are indicative of different aspects of a person's life. Aside from that though, they all kinda looked the same...wouldn't be the first time I've heard that though :) But yeah, each region has a unique style of clothing, which I wasn't able to appreciate. The beer selection was kinda limited, but good enough. They only had one German brew, but it went down well since it was pretty hot. As for food, they had sausages, schnitzel, brats, and other assorted German/carnival food. I did have some pig's head though, and that was pretty good...once I got past the shock value of a head on a plate. There wasn't a whole lot of meat for how big the thing was, but between the meat and the skin - good stuff.

On the way back to the East Side neighborhood, we stopped by Kopp's - a Milwaukee frozen custard place. Think ice cream, but richer and better. They've got vanilla and chocolate flavors, but also two special flavors of the day, which are pretty much delicious. Especially when it's "bienenstichkuchen:" almond flavored custard mingled with yellow cake pieces, honey, Bavarian creme and sliced almonds.

As for the East Side area, it's very suburban feeling. I wouldn't have imagined houses that big and nice only a few miles from downtown. Some of them were approaching mansions in that regard. It makes for a nice area, but then there isn't really a city neighborhood feel to the region - no restaurants, shops, or bars in the immediate area...suburbanish. We ended up walking about twenty minutes for that type of stuff later in the night. It's especially weird to not have that stuff nearby, since UW-Milwaukee was only a few blocks away. It's a different story west of the river though, where most of the apartments, houses, and region are not nearly as nice. When driving across town, it's quite a contrast between the two banks of the river.

We caught brunch at the original pancake house. I got served the largest omelette I've had - it seriously took up an entire plate and was about three inches thick. Oh, and it was covered in goodness that was some sort of mushroom sauce. Headed out to the Brewers game afterwards. I have to say that Miller Park is pretty nice. If it weren't in the middle of nowhere, it might give Petco a run for nicest park, imo.

So yeah, the city's pretty nice as far as living arrangements go. Pretty big places around the East Side, which are close to the lake and downtown. Aside from that though, it's a quieter town with less going on in the neighborhoods. It's been awhile since I've been to their downtown though, so that might be a different story.