Tag: Country Music

All That’s Left of Summer Is Some Blogs

All That’s Left of Summer Is Some Blogs

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We’re back in session for the 2013/2014 school year! Who’s excited? Even if you’re not, I hope you aren’t too upset that summer is over. Summer was nice, but my favorite season is Fall so I’m happy that school has started up again.

There will be plenty of time ahead to blog about this semester, so I’m going to tell you all a little about what I was up to this summer.

Most of my summer was spent working at XSport Fitness as front desk staff. When I wasn’t working, I spent time exploring the outskirts of Chicago with my boyfriend. Before May, I mainly knew Chicago as downtown and what I passed when I was on the different CTA lines. I rarely saw Chicago west of the Kennedy Expressway. This summer though, I finally got past my unintentional boundaries.

Aside from exploring more of Chicago by driving around, several of my favorite discoveries included the following:

1. On a clear day, the Chicago skyline can be seen from Bensenville out near O’Hare Airport

2. Harlem Irving Plaza– to people that frequent the “HIP”, this may seem lame, but other than Watertower Place and 900 North, this is the only mall I’ve seen in Chicago. I love going to malls because they are all so unique on the inside, and the HIP is no exception. I didn’t see much of it, but I liked that to get into the mall, you go through an entrance where you take an escalator down from the outdoor parking lot.

3. I learned to fish in August and took several trips for fishing. I went to Fox River, Lake Michigan and Utica, IL. It’s a very quiet and peaceful activity that took me outdoors for some fresh air, even if all I could catch were logs. One of these days I’m hoping to catch a real fish instead of just feeding them my bait. Maybe tomorrow!

4. Country music- I’ve listened to country tunes for years and have some of my favorites bands and musicians, but listening to county music on the radio day after day really made me listen to it and appreciate it more. My iTunes has greatly expanded due to the extensive list of country songs I added to it this summer, like one of my new favorite songs, “I Want Crazy” by Hunter Hayes.

5. I went to quite a few restaurants and small food places this summer that opened up my taste buds. My healthy eating unfortunately came to a halt at the beginning of summer because there became too many temptations for me to pass up. Several places that were new to me were Longhorn Steakhouse, Roma’s, Twin Gyros and Outback Steakhouse. I tried lots of delicious food, some that I’ve had before at other places, and some that were completely new. One of my new favorite treats, courtesy of Roma’s, is Watermelon Italian Ice- delicious!

A Week Past Summer Solstice

A Week Past Summer Solstice

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July is rapidly approaching, which means that half of my Loyola summer is officially over. Two months ago, I was stressing over my finals, and in two months, I’ll be back in the classroom, brainstorming ways that I can convince my professors to give me As (I know- a good start is by doing the homework and studying).

So far, this summer has been filled with many hot and eventful days. And there are many more to come. Several of my summer’s highlights to date are:

  1. Went to my first wedding with a best friend of mine, and took the Amtrak train for the first time to get there. I did not think that I would be hearing country music at a wedding, but I was on cloud nine when I started to hear song after song of pure country bliss. I downloaded “God Gave Me You” by Blake Shelton and “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)” by Luke Bryan the moment I got back from that trip.
  2. Went to one of Chicago’s Full Moon Jams. This firedance is held once a month during the full moon during the summer months in Chicago right off of Lake Shore Drive. Right after the sun set, drum playing began along with a group of people dancing with fire (using hula hoops, batons, fans) in a ring. My favorite part of it? When these two guys started blowing fire out of their mouths like dragons.
  3. Going to Lincoln Park Zoo and seeing this awesome juggler performing near the Polar Bears (or technically, where the polar bear SHOULD HAVE been but WASN’T- I will not cry…). There was a small crowd gather around him as he did awesome tricks that I’d never seen before. One trick was that he stacked several objects (I think it was a flat wooden stick, two balls and a wine glass), one on top of the other, and balanced them using his mouth while juggling two balls in each of his hands. If you don’t understand this…well, I didn’t understand how he did it. Hopefully he’ll perform there again!

And now, here are several rapidly approaching events that I’m looking forward to:

  1. Going to see the performance of Cirque du Soleil- Dralion for my birthday this weekend with my mom. I’ve seen Cirque du Soleil once before and they did not disappoint, so here’s to round two of acrobatic awesomeness!
  2. Seeing the Fourth of July Navy Pier fireworks downtown this year. I saw them several times before, and it was breathtaking. The view of them bursting over the lake is definitely not one to miss- even if it takes four hours in traffic to get downtown to see them.

Along with these events, I plan on having some smaller adventures as well, like: finally seeing Buckingham Fountain, going to Six Flags Great America and hopefully going to the Shedd Aquarium. Maybe July is my month to do all of them!