Breckenridge

Our ever so long extended honeymoon wrapped up with another trip all the way across NE back to CO and up to Breckenridge this time. With 2 other couples. And we slept on a hida-bed. Very romantic. During a benefit auction this past winter some of Matt's coworkers purchased a long weekend at a condo. One couple had to boge out, so we were the back up friends!!!! At this point I don't remember a lot of details, but here is4-er (14, the general gist of what we did.

We hiked. We wanted to do a full 14-er (14000 ft), but it turns out in late June there is still quite a bit of snow there. Huh. Who knew. The ladies were too scared of wandering too much in the snow - not because of the cold or the difficulty but because of the fear of getting lost off the path. I could picture us being featured on "I shouldn't be alive." So we turned around. Our condo was a little outside of downtown Breck, so Matt and I would walk into town a lot. Everyone else liked to chill a bit more. Matt isn't the best at chillin. We pretty much walked that whole town.

We went rafting. In wet suites of course. 2 people had just died on the river. We didn't die. This was Matt's first time, and he was pretty nervous. He isn't the best swimmer, so I was nervous for him too. It was only 2 hrs. And it was cold. But fun. We stumbled upon some large white water rafting festival. Hippies :D

We rode the chairlift to the top of Breck. Turns out there was snow up there too. For those of you who read about our trip to Chi town last Labor day, you know Matt isn't a fan of heights. Chair lifts are no exception. Again, this was something Matt had never been on. His knuckles were white from holding onto the safety bar so tightly. Cute.

We ate Chic fil a on the way home. Pretty much Matt's highlight.

Milwaukee

Finally on to Milwaukee. I may have lost the will to put up pictures, but we will see how I feel at the end of the post.

If I learned nothing else on our honeymoon, it was how to spell Cincinnati and Milwaukee (w/o the help of spell check). I also learned that Matt and I really like the latter. We arrived in Milwaukee and headed straight to the game as it was a Sunday afternoon game and we figured it would be busy. Man were we right. Standing room only. We paid for parking and standing room only tickets. That was expensive. To tell you the truth I don't remember much about the game. The stadium was not my favorite. Unlike other newer stadiums (this stadium is pretty new too), you can't see the ball field from all the concourses. You could go long stretches without seeing the field. Me no likey. On the other hand, Milwaukee was great.

We stayed at The Intercontinental in the downtown area, and for the first time we actually stayed for 2 nights! Maybe that is why we liked Milwaukee so much, but whatever. In the afternoon we walked around and over to the lake (Lake Michigan). The weather was great, and we loved exploring. It was too early for dinner at this point, so we chilled at the hotel until heading to a brewery up the street for dinner. Matt had grilled cheese. I had beer. And some food. They had tons of old beer cans on the walls including Oly and Ranier as well as Ranier Light. Matt was finally getting his appetite back, so I didn't have to help with the sandwich :(







The next day we actually got to sleep in and not drive 5 hours. Another huge plus! We walked over to a place a friend recommended for a cheap lunch. It was a whole in the wall Mexican place that I can't even remember the name of. It was cheap though. Being the cheap people we are, we only walked by the Harley Museum. We didn't go in. Fine by me. The highlight of the day was the brewery tour - Lakefront Brewery. For $7 each we got 4 8oz samples, a "tour," a souvenir pint glass, and a coupon for a free pint at a local bar. We won. Well, I won actually. As Matt isn't as big into beer as I am, I got pretty much all of his including the pint at the bar. Woohoo. At this point I was a bit tipsy...and it was only 4pm. We chilled for a bit and then stuffed ourselves on cheese. Seriously. I never thought I could hit a cheese overload, but I may have here: AJ Bombers. It has been on Food Wars. I got grilled cheese. And we got cheese curds as an appetizer. And poutine. So good.

Milwaukee also proved to decision point: drive to the Twin Cities or drive home. After much debate we ended this leg of our honeymoon early as we would be heading to Breckenridge in 2 days. We survived all those miles without killing each other and without threatening divorce. It was great. My only suggestion for anyone thinking about it would be to spread......it........out. 2 days in each place would have been way better. More expensive but way better.

On a way better rotation now. Will update on that later.

Said before and I will say it again

I love baking. I follow several food blogs, and from time to time I have the urge to make this a food blog. Then I remember that I have a 7 year old camera and am way too eager to eat the food than to take pictures of it. Ergo, I will just talk about food. Today, I made these: http://annies-eats.net/2011/07/18/soft-frosted-sugar-cookies/
Holy canolli batman. I haven't even frosted them yet and I want to devour every single last one. I will of course be taking them to work with me tomorrow.

I took a break between writing that first paragraph and this one...and ate too much cookie dough and sugar today. Oh my goodness. Maybe just gave myself diabetes. I need to go food coma myself

Wait a second

I know I know I know. I am still in the middle of the honeymoon. But I don't feel like talking about that at the moment. Basically, I can't summon the energy to put together that many coherent strings of thoughts. I am on day  13 of 19 straight. That is 13 days of waking up at 5am. 13 days of watching the sunrise. 13 days of having flashing lights accompany my drive to work. It isn't all bad. I get to see lots of bunnies. Bunnies are like squirrels here. No. They really are. They are adorable. Granted, working both days this weekend was by choice. Matt is still up in Seattle and comes back this week, so I offered to work both days so that I have next weekend completely off. Woohoo!

UniMed (what Creighton calls their general medicine teams) is a pretty tough month. My supervising resident and one of my attendings said that it is likely one of the hardest months. They even said harder than ICU (a resident can only follow 4 patients max in the ICU). I saw 8 the other morning. No, they aren't the sickest of patients. Some of them are rocks - waiting placement in a nursing home or what not. Some of these rocks, however, are difficult. And pokey. And remind you daily that they exist. I have unfortunately had my first encounter with a patient with whom I am fighting that whole countertransference thing. I think I have that right. Countertransference is when I treat them differently based on how they treat me. I think. Either way, I have a patient who isn't super happy with me ever no matter when I see her. Friday, she really got my water boiling. I left her with my happy voice on, but I told me co-intern that he would be taking over her care. I don't want to compromise someone's health simply because they are pushing my buttons. I believe this is the right choice.

One of the hardest parts of this month - at least early in the month - was my lack of cooking/baking and working out. With Matt gone, I don't care if dinner is at 8, so I have found plenty of time to workout and cook. While I really don't cook anything crazy and I haven't even been 'in' to cooking that long, it makes me happy. Being in the kitchen relieves stress for me. Almost as much as being in the gym or working out relieves my stress. In August I start on GI at the VA. I am hoping (but not getting my hopes up) that being on a consulting services calms my life down a little bit. We will see

BTW: Omaha is hot right now. Not like hot like "cool." Hot like hell hath descended upon us

Oh Chicago

Sorry for the hiatus. Intern year has finally started, and I have been like a chicken with my head cut off. Lost my brain, feathers everywhere, no sense of direction. Ever. 1 week down...51 to go (minus vacation of course). I will update about our Chicago trip first then hit on work.


We took off early from Detroit and drove past where old Tigers' Stadium used to be. It looked a little scary. We had been told that all the bars right through that area (lots of hole in the wall sports bars), look dead from the outside but somehow still manage to get busy. We will take their word for it. Headed west and eventually south to go through Ohio. I kept trying to get pictures of "Welcome to ______!" but amazingly always managed to miss the sign. The few times I was actually ready, no sign was there to welcome us. Shame.


Our route took us through Gary, Indiana. Boy am I glad I don't live there either. About that time, Matt's stomach started to bug him. I told him that it was because he didn't eat breakfast. I know that if I don't eat for >12hrs or so, I start to get nauseous. Always have, always will. Feed the beast regularly. Chicago driving was a little stressful. This was probably the only time we snapped at each other over directions. We eventually get to the hotel, which was actually the top 10 floors of an office building. Very strange. It was a little before noon, and our room wasn't ready yet :( We leave our bags in the car and head out for Giordano's pizza!!!!!


Last fall when we went to Chicago, we went on a pizza tour where we got to sample several deep dish pizzas. This was our favorite. We walk over there (not the main one because that one is always way too busy) and get seated. Matt is feeling even worse now. I assure him once he gets something in his stomach that he will feel better. Again, being cheap, we don't get an appetizer. Sigh. Well actually, that wouldn't have helped. About 30 minutes later (5 minutes til pizza!) Matt gets stage 5 watery mouth. We have all been there. Whether with the flu, food poisoning, or drinking, you know that moment from which you can't turn back. You need a bathroom. Stat. Matt excuses himself. He returns 10minutes later, pale as a ghost, while I nom on some oh so good pizza. He tries a bite. And heads to the bathroom again. When he returns, he says "Pay the bill and box it up" just before he heads outside. Sigh. Pizza experience ruined.


I struggle to find Matt outside as he is in a bush losing his stomach. He says he feels better and we can walk around. We made a good attempt, but he starts to get dizzy and weak. Back we go to the hotel! We are about a mile away, and all I can picture is him doing down on the sidewalk and having to go get the car to get him. There is no way we are paying for a cab :D He stops at more than one garbage can to do his thing. He mumbles incoherent things at me. He gets stomach contents in his beard. But we make it back. Alas, our room was still not ready. Another heavy sigh. We chill in the cool lobby. I work on my puzzle book. Matt frequents the bathroom. 230 rolls around (300 is check in time), and I urgently request that we get our room. Stat. Of course she needs to talk to Matt since the room is under him name. OMG. We make it to the room just in time for another bathroom break. I get him some 7up and crackers, and once he falls asleep, I leave. 

View from our room

Flying guy!

To Navy Pier I go!

Here are the pics from my solo walk (above)

Awesome sandwich

Matt pretty much slept all night. Needless to say, the game was a no go. In general Chicago was a bust. I told Matt he owes me another Chicago trip. He feels bad about the whole thing. We have no clue why he got sick. I never felt anything wrong. The only difference in our food was that he had some ranch with the pizza the night before. I had none. Maybe? Maybe. Our contacts were all the same, so I feel that that isn't likely. Here are the delicious foods I ate all by my lonesome.

You can't tell, but he is sweating

On to intern year. Oh. My. Goodness. For those of you in medical school: stay in 4th year as long as possible. I mean, I have done a lot of hard things, but I think this takes the cake. As with medical school, it isn't that what I am doing is super difficult. Pretty much anyone could write notes and orders. The hard part is how much of it I have to do on top of all the other little things like dictations and calling social workers. I am getting a handle on it a little more, and this will most likely be one of my harder months. Still though. I did at least get a surprise golden weekend (48 hours completely off)!! Amazing! Matt leaves Tuesday morning (5AM flight!!!!) for a couple weeks, so I am going to be stocking the freezer! 

So this is Detroit

Now that I took a little break I completely forget how I was formatting these posts. Sigh. I am a stickler for similar formatting. It takes me forever to load my ipod if for some unknown reason I lose all my music, which has happened more than once. I have had orientation going on, so that is my excuse :D

View of Canada from GM building

We left Pittsburgh the morning of the 10th (I think) heading to the great city of Detroit. Both of us had heard so many things about the state of the city, so we were excited to get to see it for ourselves. That, and the fact that the Mariners were playing the Tigers, made the 5 hour drive fast. Okay, fast is a bit of an exaggeration but still. Our drive was pretty uneventful, and the GPS never steered us wrong. Whoop!

On the way into the city, we passed a lot of factories. Matt thought they looked empty. I didn't so much, but I agreed with him as to not seem like I was contradicting just for contradicting's sake. There was no denying the emptiness, however, when we pulled off the interstate. My goodness. Below is the first building we say. Almost all the glass was blown out. It was spooky looking, and it was still midday at this point. 

We headed to our hotel and checked in causing us to notice this on our hotel door:

And we were in a super nice hotel that needed a key card to take the elevator to the rooms. We, of course, were hungry, so we stopped here:

These two places have been on TV a lot battling against each other. A few decades back they were started by relatives both serving "authentic coney island dogs." Basically...chili cheese dogs with mustard and onions. We each ate one dog at both, and our winner is: American!!!!! For me, it was the winner because I liked the hot dog a little more and the chili a lot more.

After that we went walking giving us the opportunity to see all the abandoned buildings up close. My goodness people. There seemed to be no one. No one! We made it to a free tour of the GM building, which was actually pretty cool. It turns out that Detroit hit its high population in the 50s. After that (not just with the demise of the car industry), people started moving to the suburbs. The GM building was built in the 70s in an attempt to draw people back into the city. Turns out it didn't work. Sigh. We walked around a little more after the tour before heading back to the hotel.

As we got there, it started to pour! We weren't worried about getting wet (we aren't made of sugar afterall), but our concern was that the game would be cancelled. We headed out for a wet wet walk just to see more abandonment. No people hitting up Friday happy hours. No cute little stores. In fact, a sign just north of the baseball stadium read: We strongly suggest you don't park north of this sign. We could see why. Crumbling houses. Burned out buildings. When night came, only about 30% of the high rises had lights on - that includes either offices on the inside or lights to show the architecture on the outside. 

Enough with the sadness! Tigers stadium was actually really really cool inside and out. The scoreboard and crowd interaction was a bit lacking though. The game ended up starting on time, and we got cheap seats up high. The Mariners even won! Whoop! We head out just as the great fireworks show started because we wanted to make it back to the hotel (via walking) while people were still around. Tons of people came in from the suburbs for the game, but they just head right back out afterwards. On the way, we stopped for pizza (weird) and ate it at the hotel. Overall it was a very weird experience. We agree we would go back to visit the other parts of the state, but we would probably never return to Detroit. : /

MILES TRAVELED DAY 4

Land: 286 miles

The winner!

Fist bump to the extreme

Church we found

There are actually tall buildings. You just can't see them

Where old Tigers Stadium used to be

Therapy in Pittsburgh

This was supposed to be at the end, but this is the view from the stadium

Matt hates Pittsburgh. And when I say hate, I mean hate. Ever since the Seahawks lost to the Steelers a few years back, he has had a lot of emotional baggage that we, as a couple, have to carry around. Our brief stint in the city helped relieve some of this pent up anger.

We left Cincinnati in the morning for an evening game of the Pirates vs the Arizona Diamondbacks. While Matt is a World Geography teacher, apparently neither of us know the exact details of each and every American state. Turns out, on the way from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, you go through West Virginia! Mark that one off our list! It was only 10minutes if that, but it still counts. Pittsburgh had some pretty cool tunnel thing coming into it and a whole lot of bridges. This was actually the one and only time that the Navigation tool on my phone failed us. She said take exit 7B and it was really 1B, so it threw us all off. After a 2mile detour we were at our hotel: DoubleTree. They had a room ready for us and even upgraded us since we said we were on our honeymoon (heck, you get to do it once, why not get all the perks out of it that you can). Our room was awesome! We decided to start doing our usual thing - walking.

After about 5 minutes outside we were both hot and hungry, which makes for two very grumpy newlyweds. On my list for Pittsburgh was Primanti Brothers. They are on Food Network and Travel Channel a lot. Basically their claim to fame is putting your fries and your slaw on your sandwich. We both got the same thing because I panicked while ordering, but it all turned out okay. After our oh-so-filling lunch, we walked a little longer and then headed back to the hotel. Just as we were relaxing, someone knocked on the door. Now, when you travel alone (ie, not with your basketball team) you don't expect anyone knocking on the door. My heart started racing a little faster, as my mind went worst case scenario of course (it is a cross I have to carry). Turns out it was just...room service!!!!! The hotel sent us a bottle of champagne and hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. My goodness. Those were some of the best strawberries I have ever had. Then we got to throw back the champagne because it was almost time to leave for the game.

Turns out we actually really liked Pittsburgh's stadium. Again, like Cincinnati, it was right on a river. Great view of downtown, some cool architecture, etc etc. Cheap tickets were a little more spendy here though. After doing our typical full walk of the stadium, we started racking up our free things. Matt manages to schmooze us into some upgraded club level seats, which was awesome. If I keep him around for nothing else, I will keep him around for that. I kid, I kid; I will keep him around for many reasons. :D I forget who won the game, but we both really liked this stadium.

On the way home we were slightly hungry, so we stopped and got some pitas at a Greek place. They were good, and we didn't get poisoned, but the place may have been a little sketch looking back at it. Tada! Pittsburgh! I am sure some other things happened, but being a couple days out, I sort of forget things.

MILES TRAVELED DAY 3

Land: 286miles

Bridges!!!

Nom nom nom nom

So good!!!

Nice glow of sweat going on