Celebrating a Quarter-Century a Bit Early

The following is my catch-up post from last weekend: Tomorrow is Dan's 25th birthday (yay!), and, due to the nature of the gift I got him, we started celebrating a bit early.  I actually had the day off on Friday, so I spent a good chunk of the day getting some sun at the pool with my mom.  I met up with Dan when he got off of work, and we grabbed dinner at one of our favorite seafood restaurants before heading down to Chinatown for some birthday activities.  I had gotten us tickets to see Second City, the INCREDIBLE Chicago-based comedy/improv troupe that calls Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Steve Carrell alums (to name a few).  The show wasn't until 10:30, so we had some time to kill beforehand.  We attempted to go to The Passenger, the hipster bar in Dan's old neighborhood where we went on our second date, but the floors were being re-done and it was closed.  Womp.  We finally ended up sitting at the bar at Iron Horse, which was perfect because the Olympic Opening Ceremonies were on!!! We had some good laughs about the trippy and confusing show and watched the beginning of the athletes marching in.  Despite all of the pageantry, I really enjoy seeing all of the athletes marching around the stadium.

Second City was HILARIOUS!!!!! If any of you are ever in Chicago, or have the opportunity to see them perform wherever you live, DO IT DO IT DO IT!  I would say that it was about 70/30 prepared skits to audience-aided improv, all the while punctuated by very appropriate DC references (I always appreciate it when people so clearly do their research).  I barely stopped laughing during the show, which was about an hour-and-a-half long.  I had tears rolling down my face from how hard I was laughing!

On Saturday morning, we had to do a nine-miler, so we were up and out early...or so we thought.  It was apparently not early enough to beat the heat, and I nearly keeled over as we went up the Wisconsin Ave. hill. I had to stop and take a breather and just stand for the air conditioning in Safeway for a few minutes, and I think I just overheated/the chain reaction of my asthma kicking in happened.  All I have to say is, thank God our race is completely flat.  I'm also hoping it is 78 degrees (on September 2nd).  Is that too ambitious? Haha.

We watched the Olympics all afternoon and then went to District of Pizza in Chinatown for dinner.  Apparently we were keeping with the Chicago theme for the weekend, because their specialty is deep-dish pizza, and boy was it delicious!  Then, we met up with James and Lindsay to see The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX, where we sat in the front row.  Again, womp.  I had a splitting headache by about halfway through the movie, but still managed to really enjoy it.  From there, we went to Red Line, which we had never tried before.  We weren't able to get one of the tables that has a tap right at the table, but it was still a cool place.

On Sunday morning, I met up with Lauren for a lovely day of chatting, eating and movies.  We went out for a delicious brunch at Vinoteca, and then, after walking back to Chinatown, saw "The Well-Digger's Daughter," a French film, at E Street Cinema. It has pretty much become a joke between all of us that Lauren should work there, because she practically lives at that theater.  I will say, they have really incredible, off-the-beaten-path movies, and this one was no exception (despite the lingering trauma from having sat too close to the screen the night before).  It was a great weekend, and I only have one more of them before I go to the Lake!!!! I need a break so badly, and a week from tomorrow, I will be home free :)

In the meantime, though, tomorrow is Dan's actual birthday!!!!! Hooray! I'm absolutely more excited about it than he is.  I have the day off, so I plan on spending the day baking (will post pictures afterward) before meeting up with him to go to dinner at a top-secret location (again, will disclose later).  I hope you're all having a great week so far!  Happy Hump Day!