I suppose you’re looking for a Vegas recap, eh? (That question was posed mostly for my grandparents– all of my Facebook friends were subjected to updates and cell phone pics the entire week. Gotta love them smart phones.) In short, it was awesome, obviously. For a bit more depth, I suppose I could go into how I refuse to ever get in a car again if I’ll be traveling more than four hours away. I could tell you how great– kinda awkward at first, but great– it was to see Darin (best friend from my study abroad program who lives in Colorado, remember?) again and how amazing the pizza was at the local place he took us to. If you were wondering, it’s called Home Slice in Durango, CO. I could tell you how fabulous Thunder from Down Under was, but I feel that’s one of those “What happens in Vegas…” things. Having the roomies there was surprisingly fun– I don’t mean that in a bitchy way, I mean there are few people I could go on vacation with and not completely despise afterward, and thankfully they made the list. (So did NPH, but if nothing else, 50+ hours in a car with him only more solidified his awesomeness.) I’m also surprisingly sane for sitting alone in my apartment– sleeping, recently bathed basset sleeping on the couch behind me not included– on the last night of my very last Spring Break ever, catching up on homework, brushing up for an internship interview tomorrow, not all that concerned that there are only eight weeks before BLAM-O real life. Oh, speaking of aforementioned hound, apparently he was an absolute shithead (sorry, but that’s really the only way to describe it) for my parents when they watched him all week. An adorable one, but pretty misbehaved nonetheless. I do have to give them props, he seems to have taken some disciplinary lessons to heart, though he may still just be exhausted from having 12 acres to himself for six days. I shall leave you now with some photos since my brilliant literary descriptions could never be enough.

There was a LOT of this.

Glorious. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire time.

You can take the girl outta Germany...

Yes, after that much time spent together, we're still speaking to each other.

And finally, perhaps the most important part of the whole trip! DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET PICKLES ON YOUR IN-N-OUT BURGER?! I've died.

Very, very, very quick post.

I’m in the guest bedroom at Natalie’s house, about ready to pass out from exhaustion. This has been quite the long week, and my weekend is only going to get busier (but so, so much more fun.) In the morning we fly to Boston– send up a few quick ones that snow overnight won’t delay our flight out– and get approximately 48 hours in the most fabulous city (ok, 3rd most fabulous) in the world to eat, drink, play, network, schmooze, make friends, see the sights, and really anything but sleep. Did I mention our hotel has warm cookies for each guest upon arrival?

Fergus lost his manhood on Wednesday, but as the receptionist told me when I picked up this morning, “I don’t think he even realized he had surgery.” He’s already back to his rambunctious puppy self, and I will miss him terribly in my absence. I had my first midterm of the semester on Tuesday, pretty sure I rocked it, though I find myself caring less and less as we get closer to May whether I did or not. The fact that we’re leaving for Vegas for Spring Break two weeks from tomorrow is nuts. Complete and utter insanity. I will mostly likely be back here in the ‘burbs next weekend for a night while Neil gets his car in tip-top shape before the drive, so there really is no rest for the weary. Not that I’m complaining, things are quite awesome as of late.

(Oh, bootcamp still leaves me pretty sore– and ravenous– but getting up before the sun is getting easier, and I’m starting to notice larger muscles. Now if only the extra inches around my abs that have settled in post half marathon training would get the hell outta here.)

The thermometer outside one of the banks downtown read 64 today, yee-haw. It feels more like April than February, and I’m experiencing some major Germany flashbacks. I took full advantage of the above average temps and went for my first outside run of the year this morning. I did about 2.5 miles which actually really helped some of the lingering soreness from boot camp, though my lungs and legs seemed to be in a contest of which wanted to make me feel more out of shape during the whole thing. Fergus and I also went on a walk after class, though when his very low to the ground tummy meets this melty/muddy/puddle stuff, let’s just say either I’ll be investing in a lot more dog shampoo– not exactly likely since baths are not his favorite– or we might just have a dingy pup for the entire season.

The concert on Monday was, in a word, amazing. In two words, holy crap. We went to dinner at Bier Stube where they had an impressive imported beer selection and a semi-authentic menu that did not disappoint. (I mean, it was no Germany, but for Moline, Illinois it was pretty legit.) We got to the venue right as the doors were opening, and we wasted no time finding our seats which were really good. It’s not that big of a place (they play arena football there which as Neil informed me is the size of only half a football field) so it seems there aren’t many seats that could be deemed nosebleed. Both of us were quite surprised by the amount of preteen and grade school-aged children in attendance. Granted, many were with their parents, but they all had their own Ozzy shirts and appeared to be just as big of fans as the leather-clad, ruffian (thanks for the spelling lesson, Kayla) middle-aged chaperons. (I JUST LEARNED THAT ‘CHAPERON’ DOES NOT HAVE AN ‘E’ AT THE END. Holy schmoligans.)

Slash came out at 7:20, even though our tickets said the show didn’t start until 7:30, and played through lots of Guns ‘n Roses songs as well as some from his recent solo album, all with Myles Kennedy singing vocals. While he was no Axl, he’s not at all a bad singer and it was a really good performance. Of course I am in no way biased. Seeing Slash play Sweet Child o’ Mine and Paradise City in person (shirtless!!) made every single one of my adolescent dreams come true. It was so. awesome. Ozzy’s set started with a super funny parody video in which he was CGI-ed into pop culture stuff. For example, he was an Avatar, then he was Mike “The Situation” in a clip from Jersey Shore, then he appropriately became Iron Man from a clip from the second movie, and he was Beyonce in Gaga’s “Telephone” video which was absolutely my favorite. He finally came out, long black trench coat and hair a-waving, launching into most of his greatest hits, and generally still owning and rocking out on the stage despite being in his sixties. The entire concert was amazing, I had a huge smile on my face the entire time, the crowd loved, two thumbs up to all involved.

And with that, I’m off to make sure my car is super, sparkling clean since it’s my job to pick up our keynote speaker for PR Day (which is tomorrow!!!) from the airport.

BOSTON BOSTON BOSTON

I’m headed to Boston!!

Natalie and I will be headed to Bean Town at the end of the month for a PRSSA conference and there are no words for how over the moon excited I am. One weekend definitely won’t be enough time, but I. am. over. the. moon.

NEW ENGLAND, HERE I COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone found my blog by Googling “how long til adam richman gets a heart attack.” While humorous, I hope the answer is a very long time from now, or that he steps away from the eating challenges before then because I think he’s kinda cute in that lovable oaf kinda way, and Lord knows I’ve always had a thing for dark hair.

After reviewing yesterday’s post, I realized I had COMPLETELY forgotten to share with you my FAVORITE part of the trip (thus all the capitalization): MY NEW HAT.

Such a gem. So warm and…. Miller Lite-y. I wore it during a 30-second Aldi trip yesterday, and you can best bet there were a few um, glances. NPH posed a great question yesterday when, 20 minutes outside of Iowa City and over four hours into what was starting to seem like the longest car trip of my life, he asked, “How are you going to survive when we drive for 12 hours at a time going to Vegas?” Egads. My answer is that of course I won’t actually survive and he’ll have to dump my lifeless body somewhere in Durango, Colorado for D-Bag to find, since visiting him is the only reason I’m subjecting myself to the confines of a vehicle instead of a cushy less-than-three-hour flight.
In all seriousness, I did enjoy the road-tripping part of our Milwaukee trip sometimes almost as much as the actual exploring the city part (a stretch of the truth, but follow me.) We weren’t really on a time crunch to get back, so getting lost in Madison twice wasn’t really a problem, and we were able to stop off in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin– the troll capital of the world. No seriously, that’s their town motto. Their website is Trollway.com (why the town isn’t just called Trollway, we may never know.) Obviously we had to stop, only to find out that this place thinks it’s somewhere in England because every intersection is a roundabout. They had a McDonalds so we stopped for a sweet treat (ice cream cone for her, Oreo McFlurry for him) and were baffled because I drove right past the window to pay because it was on some diagonal hidden corner of the building. The guy in the window had to shout out for me to reverse and make another attempt because OH WAIT I’m sorry, I’ve never been to a freaky diagonal Mickey D’s before. Silly trolls.
Road trips are also that magical place when you find out weird things about the person you’re traveling with, such as NPH’s complete– do I wanna say obsession here? Perhaps just love– love for Culver’s. Yeah, that Culver’s, the restaurant with the Butter Burgers. Is the part where I say ew? But sometimes we take one for the team to make our loved ones happy, so you better believe we stopped for lunch on the way back so someone could cure that Culver’s craving. In defense of his arteries, there’s no Culver’s in the Iowa City or Chicago areas, so the only time he can get it is perhaps twice a year when he ventures away from those places.

SO– to end what has become a sort of Saturday morning ramble sesh, I will answer the question probably burning in all your brains since bacon ended up in my Bloody Mary: I’ve abandoned the whole vegetarian thing. Why? Well, in a simple answer, I do like meat. Sometimes. Still not a lot, but I did find it much harder to be a veg in certain situations. I will still always pick a veggie burger over a real one because somehow Morningstar Farms has managed to find heaven and pack it into their chipotle black bean burgers. Also, not to completely rip off Marie, but I LIKE VEGETABLES!!! Also, the doctor says my iron and protein levels are low. I realize I can take supplements for that, but I could also just pick up some meat sometimes. Because there are two things I’m going to get in Vegas over Spring Break besides obliterated: In-n-Out Burger and a turkey reuben from Canter’s. And yes, I mostly posted this confession for my two vegetarian roommates who I’ve been pretty scared to come out of the meat-eating closet to because well, they can be vicious. You shoulda seen the way Rachael attacked the Wii when our marathon session of Say Yes to the Dress stopped streaming on Netflix. Ruthless, I tell you.

The boyfriend and I returned this afternoon from a mini vacation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where we toured the MillerCoors brewery as his Christmas present from me. (Yes, I realize the tour is free, but the idea and other shenanigans we got into were courtesy of moi.) It was so much fun, more than I guess I was anticipating. Being both huge Miller Lite fans, the tour itself was the highlight of the trip, culminating in three free samples at the Miller Inn (which I thought would be like sample-size shot glasses but were pretty regular-sized beer glasses.) As per a tip we got from another couple we were on the tour with, we went to dinner at the Comet Cafe, a place that has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. It certainly did not disappoint– in fact, it was fantastic. They’re big on bacon there, yet also have a ton of great vegan options (I had an almond-crusted tofu vegetable salad with ginger dressing– zooooommmg amazing.) I got a Bloody Mary, one of their specialties, which came with a giant garnish, a piece of bacon in it, and a Miller High Life chaser. Yes, my drink had a piece of bacon in it, it was awesome, and they put a splash of Guinness in there as well.

Oh yeah. It was amazing.

Sorry for the shoddy camera work, but yum

Our respective alarms all start blaring at 5 a.m. this morning (Eastern time, so really 4 a.m.) to get on a plane back home. Shout out to the Radisson for having Sleep Number beds, free wireless, and a free shuttle to the airport. While in hindsight we should have just come back Monday night, at least we moved to a hotel right next to the airport for maximum sleep in time and it was glorious. After a lot of connecting and waiting and random dozing off and flying and driving and one oddly delicious breakfast sandwich from Potbelly even though the lady put bacon on it the first time, we made it back to Iowa City and went our separate ways. While we did some serious bonding over our long weekend, I feel I need an extended break from all things PRSSA and my fellow members (said as lovingly as possible, of course.) If I heard the words networking, social media, Twitter, or resume in the next week, I will LOSE IT.
While I should be getting some homework done, sleep is absolutely trumping any deadlines I currently have, so I’ll leave you with some photos from the trip. A freshly bathed Fergus is snoring away next to me– he snores a lot and gets the hiccups once a day, thoughts?– and I will probably soon join him (I seem to have chronic sinus problems, the snores are not my fault. I SWEAR.)
I just sneezed twice and he woke up, bewildered. Love.

PUMPKIN MARTINIS!!

No zoom-- we were literally at the White House's front door during the Garden Tour

Sasha & Malia's new play set

The changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery

If you’re a-Facebookin’ and wanna see all my pics, you can click here.

Our time at the conference is half over, and it’s been… ok so far. There have been some good speakers, some bad speakers, some really lame moments, and some meeting of pretty cool people. My favorite parts have been the times we weren’t actually in any sessions– when we went out last night with girls from Virginia Tech, when we went to lunch at a Mediterranean place yesterday where both Miller Lite and hummus were on special. Tonight NPH’s little sister took me around town since she goes to school here, and home girl literally restored my sanity. We went to dinner at a diner in the Adams Morgan area of town, then we took the Metro to the National Mall and saw all the quintessential things I needed to see to say I’d actually been in DC. The White House and other monuments were so completely different than what I ever pictured them as. There’s so much open lawn space around everything, especially the Washington Monument. We couldn’t get close to the White House, and were ever talked to by security guards because we couldn’t figure out how to leave the area to get over to the other monuments. I really like DC, as in, I could really see myself moving here. I won’t get into all the head games that have been brought on by being surrounded by 1,000 of my peers who are all just as qualified, if not more so, for the jobs we’d kill each other over. I realllllly miss Fergus, and I miss NPH more now that his sister and I had a few good laughs over him this evening. I’m ready to go back to Iowa just because I have so much for school and work that I need to get done, but I definitely want to return to DC on my own terms and really look around.

After cutting it pretty close to make our flight from Moline to Detroit, I am now typing 30,000 miles above ground and hurtling towards our nation’s capital through quite a bit of turbulence (but let’s be honest, I’m posting while firmly on the ground probably somewhere in the Marriott lobby—I’m certainly not paying for in-flight wireless, though for the first time in my life it is available.) Going from Concourse C to A in Detroit, I was freaked out by how eerily familiar it seemed. Chalking it up to 14 years of flying finally blurring into one ball of indiscernible travel experience, I then remembered that I had stalked a senator through that very underground passage back in January. Le sigh. As if I weren’t already having trouble with the Germany flashbacks.
Outside our gate there was a small food court where—get this—there was a restaurant dedicated to PB&J. They carried other variations including my favorite, peanut butter and banana, or PB & Chocolate, or even PB, banana, honey & bacon on cinnamon swirl bread. I opted for a fruit cup from a bakery instead, because after reading Skinny Bitch (very eye-opening) and finally completely crossing the boundary from toying with vegetarianism to committing to vegetarianism, I was just really craving some fruit. Yes, I realize I just announced my not eating meat in what must seem like a very flippant “Oh, maybe I’ll wear a T-shirt today” kind of way, but I assure you I’d been consuming it sparingly anyway, and the stats, experiences, and descriptions in the aforementioned book made me realize I just need to go ahead and give it up.
I’m already completely exhausted (dammit, Fergus) and will want to just fall into bed as soon as we get to the hotel, but who knows what kind of second wind DC will bring me. Speaking of my little floppy-eared love, he had his first vet visit yesterday. Not only did he pass, but he’s gained a pound since we got him on Saturday, and he charmed everyone in the office who assured me he’s the cutest basset they may have ever seen. Wtf, flight attendants—they haven’t even begun the in-flight beverage service. This is only an hour long flight; if I don’t see some pretzels before reaching our destination, heads will roll.

Lollapalooza was Gaga. And by that I mean, the whole reason I went to Lolla this year was for Her Majesty herself. I took a much more relaxed approach to the festival than last year, not to mention I had many more friends to hang out with at places other than the event itself. It’s guaranteed I’ll have issues anywhere porta-potties are the only means of relieving myself, but thankfully there were no major incidents or lack of toilet paper to report. I can’t really go into a full-on review of Gaga’s show because mostly my mind was just blown, but as everyone afterward said, it was a performance. Homegirl had some serious angst from performing at Lolla three years ago when she was a nobody and being told she’d remain so– there was a lot of shouting and “F You’s!” to the proverbial man. There were also a lot of parents who brought their kids (we’re talking 8-12 year olds) which was super inappropriate. Other than that, Green Day was good– everyone after Gaga just reminded me I wasn’t at Gaga (yes, it’s more than obsession.) Upon my return to Iowa City, I finished moving into my apartment and decorating my room. I was pleasantly surprised by how much stuff I brought back from Germany to brighten up the place, feel free to come over and check it out sometime. I only have ONE WEEK left at my internship, which honestly I’m pretty excited about, only because that means school starts afterward and I’m oddly psyched for routine life to start again. Oh– so I was introduced to Great Harvest Bakery this weekend. No, my life will never be the same; yes, I definitely ate more than one scone. WHYYYY don’t we ever get the cool places to come to Iowa??