Friday, July 31, 2015

Haters Gonna Hate

I’ve been thinking a lot about the haters of the world lately.  Or at least haters of my little world.  I have decided to not live my life by what they say.  They are miserable people who want you to be miserable too. Seriously!  Misery loves company.

Do the haters pay your bills?  Then why the heck would you listen to them? 




Be happy!   Live your life the way you want to live it.  When they see you successful those people will be the ones who want to know how you did it but they might still talk behind your back.  LOL.  


So party on party people! :)
I love these cute cats!!!!  


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Weekend Happenings


This weekend I almost got another Bucket List item checked off, but no such luck.  I bought tickets to the Best Damn Food Truck Festival, but it turned out so awful that I requested a refund on my credit card.

It all started great, but quickly turned south when we got there.  I picked up my friend Tracie and her friend (who is now my new friend) Jennifer at Tracie’s house.  I had bought two tickets online because the FB group said that they were about to sell out, but Jennifer did not have a ticket.  So we made a sign in the hopes that someone would have an extra ticket for purchase. 

We got there and had to pay $12 to park.  I completely understand that you need to pay to park, we just weren’t expecting it since it didn’t say it on the website.  When we got out of the car, Jennifer immediately started holding up her sign and as luck would have it, two girls saw it and told us that they had just thrown away two tickets!  Jennifer and Tracie went trash digging (the papers were on the top) and got two tickets for free!   We stood in line for about 30 minutes and finally made our way in the parking lot.

It was really hot so we went to get a drink right away.  You weren’t allowed to bring in any drinks, so we had to pay $5 for water.  Rip-off city.  They were selling beer and soda for $8 but since it was so hot and we couldn’t bring anything in, we had to pay it. 

We got in line for a food truck but they ran out of food.  We got two samples (two trucks=20 minutes line each) and then three consecutive trucks ran out of food.   That’s right; three different trucks all ran out of food in a row as we were standing in line for at least 10 minutes each.  We got a grand total of 3 samples in the hour and a half that we were there.  They were all small samples instead of the ‘ample’ amounts that were promised.


We weren’t expecting huge samples, just more than one bite!  We paid $36 each ticket for 3 small samples.  That’s $12 each!  For a sample.  Between the long lines, hot sun, no shade, no tents, no place to sit, small samples, and truck that ran out of food, we were done.  When we left, 11 trucks were out of food and they still had hours left to go in the ‘festival’.  We read comments on their FB page that others were just as unhappy as we were.  Some of the food trucks themselves said that the organizers had sold 3,500 tickets but only told them to prepare for 1,000 people.  How does that math work?  

Needless to say, the comments (from everyone) on FB are not good.  People are demanding refunds and tagging the media to get involved.  I googled the event and found the group organizer named Sean Jaehne.  Apparently he did the same thing last year and is even trying to get a Kickstarter campaign to back him to make this his full time job. LOL.  Yeah, right kid. 

After we left the festival we went to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner and then Sprinkles cupcakes for dessert!  We were planning on going inside but we parked in the back and found the cupcake ATM on accident!  Yes, there is a cupcake ATM at the Houston Sprinkles location.  You just tap the screen, select the cupcake you want, swipe your credit card and out comes your cupcake!  Super cool.



The rest of the weekend was spent hanging in my pool and going to my favorite church!  They are organizing a school supply donation so I went to Walmart to buy school supplies for it.  I miss buying school supplies!

I also changed my toenails to Clowning Around theme from Jamberry!  They are so stinkin' cute!  My sister loves bright colors and her toes looked super cute when she bought them, so I had to get them too.

And my nails to Puppy Love!

Monday, July 20, 2015

Pool Installation

What do you do when the house you are house sitting for doesn't have a pool???  You install one of course.

Free Willy even comes with it!

A plastic one that is!  I filled up the pool with water and hung out outside on Friday night with a beer.  

I started off with Blue Moon Peach, but quickly upgraded to Abita Purple Haze because Blue Moon Peach is AWFUL!  Next time I will have wine though.  Nothing says white trash more than plastic pools and beer. LOL. :) #classy

Speaking of keeping it classy, here's a story for you.  I was planning on going outside to set up the pool but needed to change clothes first after I got home from work.  The backyard has a high fence around it so I thought I would just go outside in my t-shirt and panties (oh goodness, I just said panties on-line) but at the last minute thought better of it and put on some shorts.  

I set up the pool and added the water hose to it.  I decided to put my bathing suit on so I went to the back door...but it was LOCKED!!!!  Unbeknownst to me, the lower lock on the door locks by itself.  Yep, I had locked myself out with no keys, no phone, and no beer.  

I went around to the front, but that was locked too. I went to the neighbors house to see if they had a spare key, but she didn't answer.  Can you imagine if I didn't have shorts on???  I would have been mortified having to walk down the street to a neighbors house in only a t-shirt and panties!!!  After about 20 minutes, I went back to the neighbors and luckily she answered (she had been in the shower).  She let me borrow her phone and I called my aunt's mom to come and unlock the door.  

So, long story short, my plastic white trash (but fun!) pool almost turned into a real life #keepitclassy horror story. :)

#stayclassy #wearshorts

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Venezuela Part #1

Read part #2 here.


traveled to Venezuela for 9 days for work but I was actually gone for 11 days since I had to travel to Newark before and after.  I wasn’t sure what exactly we would be doing so I just packed clothes that I would have normally worn to work. 

Someone wanted to come with me!  Silly girl.  I stayed the night at my parents house and packed everything there.  They live a lot closer to the airport than I do, plus my mom was going to drop me off, it was just easier.  Plus, I got to spend time with my family before I left.
 
Miss Kali Claire
I traveled to Newark, NJ on Monday afternoon with 2 co-workers and stayed at the Marriott close to the airport. OMG, I love the beds.  I felt like I was sleeping on a cloud the entire night.  We had to be at the airport by 6 am so I had a 4:30 am wake-up time.  So sleepy!  Normally I would just sleep on the plane but ever since Kenya, I haven’t been able to sleep on planes. Boo.  At the airport that morning, guess who I ran into?  Dr. Oz!!!
Dr. Oz!

We were taking a group of 85 people (38 kids plus chaperones and instructors) from the Bronx to Venezuela to have a workshop and performances with a famous classical director.  (for privacy reasons, I won’t name what program or for who).  We were taking a private plane to Venezuela but we still needed to get 90 people (including us) through check-in and security.  We (literally) just made it to the gate and boarded the plane before we were late.  Luckily we took a chartered plane and they had to let us all through. LOL.   The kids clapped (and screamed) when we took off and landed.  A lot of the kids had never been on an airplane, much less out of the country.

We landed and had a special reception (the kids were even on the news!) while we were waiting for our luggage to be put in the van.  We boarded 2 buses and 1 van (plus about 10 other vehicles filled with security) and made our way to the hotel. 
The Violin section practicing on stage

The next day the kids went off to their workshop + practice and the chaperones headed out to sight see.  We started off in Bolivar Square in Caracas.  We went to a governmental office, a few churches, and the burial place of Simon Bolivar and other special people from Venezuela.  Simon Bolivar’s burial site was guarded by 4 guards that stood still like the Queen’s guard in England.  Afterward, we were going to go by another park (not sure the name), but it was closed because they were practicing for a big Independence Day celebration that was happening that weekend. 


The next day was a pool day for the chaperones and I went to the beach to scout out a location for a trip on Monday with the kids.  We wanted to go to a further location, Isla Margarita, but with 100 + people, it was too far.  On the way back, our driver killed a cat.  It was so sad!  I was checking my email one minute and then we were slamming on the brakes the next, but still hitting something.  I looked back and see this sweet looking orange and white cat trying to claw its way off the road.  I wanted to go back and take it somewhere, but they wouldn’t stop because it might have diseases.  At least put the poor thing out of its misery.  It was awful.  The rest of the trip all the other security guards kept calling him (teasingly)  cat killer-no sure how to say it…it started with an M…matagatos or something.

We went to a chocolate shop on Friday (read this post) and a beautiful church that was hand crafted all the way from Romania.  This church is made up of over 15,000 pieces of wood with no nails.  After they told us about the tour they offered to bless each of us with holy water (if we wanted to be blessed) and told us which Saint was watching over us.  The walls were hand painted pictures of Jesus and special events of his life like birth, baptism, turning water into wine, death, resurrection, etc).  The church was so beautiful  that you could stare for hours and see different things.

We went shopping at a local souvenir shop afterward!  I collect Christmas ornaments from each place I visit but I could not find one there.  I settled for a magnet that says Venezuela that I am just going to hot glue a ribbon to. #crafty  I brought $200 with me (not wanting to spend it all) but only exchanged $30 at the official exchange rate.  I looked like a drug dealer with all the cash!  $30 goes a long way in Venezuela.  Actually, the exchange rate guy gave us mostly 20's so we had to pay everything in small denominations.  
 
$30 worth of Bolivars (I think that's what they are called)
On Saturday we were able to watch the kids in concert at the prettiest concert hall!  It was filled with hand crafted wood and had the prettiest fabric on the chairs.  The kids (both from the Bronx and Venezuela) took the stage and I was blown away!  You would have thought they were adults with how well they were playing.  On one song they got up and danced while still playing their instruments!  It was so cute.  They got about 3 encores and kept playing!  We were so proud of them. :)  We weren't allowed to take pictures during the performance, so you will just have to see the empty auditorium!


Monday we went to the beach!  It was a relaxing day full of sand and sun.  We rented out a private beach close to the airport so our security team could keep an eye out for us.  I didn’t swim, but I did put my feet in the water and walked along the beach.  The waves kept crashing on the other side of the rocks and I kept trying to take a picture of the splash, but no such luck.  My camera was doing something funky the entire time, so the pictures were all kind of weird.


Tuesday was our last full day in Venezuela, we would be flying back the next day.  We went to an area with cable car that took us waaaaaaaaay high into the mountain.  Once at the top, you could see the city of Caracas on one side (Caracas is in a valley) and the ocean from the other side.  It was really cloudy so you couldn’t see the ocean, but we knew it was down there! :)
 
My camera was acting funky and has a weird fog over it.  
There was an entertainer that dressed up like a female riding a donkey and did a dance.  It was super cute.  Afterwards we were taking pictures with him. 



It was a sad day, but we had to leave  Venezuela behind to return to our everyday lives.  The flight back was uneventful and we made it New York safely.  I flew to Houston the next morning and took the rest of the day and the next off.  3.5 day weekend!  I needed it after working 11 straight days!

For more pictures, go here.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Birthday Stops

For my 33rd birthday, I just spent the day with myself. Haha.  I got my hair blown out, went resale shop shopping (I love resale shops!), got a calorie free (ha!) cupcake, and stopped at Buck-ee’s.

I had an early morning appointment at Dry Bar in River Oaks to get my hair blown out.  I have always wanted to go (Bucket List item!!!) and decided to treat myself for my birthday.  Everyone always says that they are addicting, but I honestly wasn’t that impressed.  It’s just like when you go to the hair salon to get your hair cut and they style it for you at the end.  Is it worth $50?

The Dry Bar location was very nice though.  It was decorated with whites, grays and yellows.  Even the hair styling tools were yellow.  They thought of all the details.

They bring you to the back to wash your hair.  This was the main part where I did not like it.  Usually I love getting my hair washed by other people, but this girl was digging into my scalp with her nails!  It really hurt.  She asked me about the water temperature, but didn’t ask about the pressure of her nails.  I am not a delicate flower, I can usually take pain ok, but man. 

After they wash your hair, they lead you back to the front chairs to choose what style you wantyou’re your hair.  You choose from a menu of about 8 choices.  I couldn’t decide between Mai tai (beachy waves) or Cosmo (curly) but luckily there is a combo of both!   If I go again (not to the same person) I would choose the ‘big hair’ option called Southern Comfort. 

While doing your hair, you can get a free mimosa! 
 
Finished hair!
After I finished getting my hair done, I went shopping at a few favorite resale stores.  I love shopping at resale stores, you can get great deals.  I even found some deals that I can sell online for a big profit. Score!

I went to one of my favorite cupcake places afterwards, Rise Cupcakes in Friendswood, TX.  Calories do not count on your birthday!  Ha!  My favorite cupcake there is Strawberry Fields, it is delicious.



My last stop was Buckee’s for an icee and saltwater taffy (I’m telling you, calories don’t count!).  I would have stayed out later to meet a friend for dinner, but the impending storm and flooding was making its way to the area, so I just decided to head home.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Cacao de Origen (with a real life Willy Wonka)

Meanwhile, on my trip to Venezuela.....(more to come)

On Friday we went to tour a chocolate shop and factory called Cacao de Origen where they make chocolate and we met a real life (hottie) Willy Wonka named Bernardo!  Let me explain why I nicknamed him this….
  1. He owned a business where they make chocolate
  2. He wore purple pants (bright purple)
  3. He had crazy curly hair (not crazy bad, but crazy curly)
  4. He was very passionate about chocolate (cacao)
  5. There were Oompa Loompas (OK, I might have made that up-but they were probably hiding in the back where we couldn’t see them)


See?  He was a real life Willy Wonka!   

Anyway, he was very passionate about cacao and bringing it back to Venezuela as a major industry.  In the past, cacao used to be a major industry, but when they discovered oil in the 30’s they dropped cacao and focused on oil. 



He could talk for hours about chocolate!  Seriously.  I have never seen someone that was this passionate about what they did, it was very sexy. Guys in the states aren’t passionate about anything (well, that might not be true) and to see a guy care so much was very interesting.  I fell in love. :)   (I hope he never reads this because that would be embarrassingly awkward.  I’m sure he’s married or something.)

Cacao de Origen

Anyway, we took a tour of his shop and the space where they manufacture the chocolate and then proceeded to almost buy out the store.  They were selling cakes, hot chocolate, bombones and more.  It smelled so good in there!  I kept singing the song “Hot Chocolate” from the Polar Express in my head for the rest of the day (minus the tap dance moves.......that would have been weird).

We had a taste test after the tour where we had to rate the different bars.  I couldn’t tell you which was which or anything about the different ones except that I liked #3 the best, but he knew all about it and was dissecting the flavors.  I’m telling you-----he was very passionate (in a good way) about his career.  It was really refreshing to see someone that cared about what they were doing. 


I bought tons of chocolate (mainly for my nephews and coworker gifts) plus some little gummies for Kali Claire.  They were gummies in different colors (red, green, yellow, and orange) that were cut in small squares.  My mom picked me up from the airport (my car was in the shop getting the bumper fixed) and Kali was with her.  Kali is learning her colors so we played a game when I gave each one to her.  I would say the name of the color and she would have to repeat to me before I gave it to her.  After a while she would just shout out the color that she wanted and refused to take any other one. My mom left them in the car when they got home (they had already dropped me off to get my car) but left the gummies in the car.  Well, we live in Texas so they melted. Whomp whomp whomp.  They come in a petri dish type container so with all of the mixed colors, it looked like a bad science experiment.  Haha.  I'm sure it is still tasty though.  I put it in the fridge but I haven't been back to my parents house to check on it.




Check out Willy Wonka’s companies, Cacao de Origen and Kakao Chocolates

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

7 Day Western Caribbean Cruise

I have had a few requests to write about my cruise, so here you go! :) 

In May, I went on a cruise with one of my best friends, Clarissa!  You may remember Clarissa from her 30th birthday party in November.   We travelled to the Caribbean on the Royal Caribbean cruise line for 7 days, stopping in Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan.  For more pictures, go here!

I was worried that I would get bored on a ship for 7 days, but by the end of it I was ready to make it my full time residence.  We set sail from Galveston, which is only a 30 minute ride from where I live.   Clarissa had driven down the night before and stayed the night. My aunt was in town for Mother’s Day and offered to take us to the cruise terminal.  We were standing in line and all we saw were couples! Clarissa said she hoped that all the cute guys were running late or already on the ship. Haha.  As the week went by, we learned that there were no cute guys. Whomp Whomp Whomp.  Apparently Carnival is the party cruise line but when we were booking it, we didn’t know this.  Not that we wanted to party, but it would have been fun to at least have someone to hang out with.
 
Sunrise!
We checked in to our room and explored the ship.  We went to a few seminars to try and win free stuff (spa and fitness centers have tours to get you to buy their products throughout the week), but we didn’t win. 

Our Room
Our room was an inside cabin on the 7th deck.  We could have paid extra for an outside cabin with a balcony, but it was honestly a good room.  It was snug, but it was just the two of us and the room had lots of space for storage.   When we got there the bed was a queen size but we could have pushed them apart to make two twin size beds.  When we left housekeeping was preparing for the room to be a four person room…that is crazy!  I would say that unless the other two people were kids, four to a room is too much.

I liked that our room was inside with no windows because you could sleep in without the sunlight filling up the room.  No matter what time we went to sleep/woke up, it was always dark.  Our dinner mates had a cabin with a balcony and they said it was noisy and the sliding door didn’t always shut properly.

Dining
Dinner:  We lucked out and got wonderful table mates at dinner!  You are free to eat on your own for breakfast and lunch, but dinner is always with the same people.  We were all about the same age and the table each night was filled with laughter.  We only skipped dinner once (too tired) because we liked everyone so much.  There were two couples and a mother/daughter pair, plus us.  We had heard that you can eat as much as you want at dinner (at all times actually) so several people ordered more than one of each item (so nights, not all).  You can’t decide which entrée to get?  Why not both?! Or 4 different ones?  Seriously, you gain weight like crazy. Lol.

Breakfast/Lunch:  We usually ate breakfast and lunch at the Windjammer Café.  It is a buffet with lots of choices for even the pickiest of eaters.  One morning we went to the dining room for breakfast and were led to a big table.  You don’t sit with your table mates during breakfast or lunch so they sat us with random people.  There was an older female friend set and 3 other older couples (We were the youngest by 30+ years).  At first they wouldn’t talk to us and were so snobby, but the closest couple made small talk with us at one point and we mentioned that we were on the lookout for cute/single guys.  All of the sudden everyone was talking to us like we were normal.  I think they thought we were lesbians or something  (we are friends people! Jeez) because we got the cold shoulder literally up until we mentioned guys.  Seriously?  You may not agree with someone’s lifestyle, but you can at least treat them like people!  I can only imagine what gay people get treated on a daily basis.  It’s sad!  As we were walking out of there, Clarissa said “If I ever become like one of those ladies, shoot me.” LOL.  Needless to say we never went back there for breakfast.

Snacks:  I didn’t really eat snacks that much but there was a section in the Promenade area (where Starbucks is) that has pizza, sandwiches, and desserts 24/7.

Ports
We had three ports during our 7 days.  I was excited because I got to go to Roatan for the day to spend time with my Aunt Tracy.  They live in New Jersey but have a vacation house in Roatan that they go to all the time.  I have been meaning to take a group of friends there but I haven’t actually booked anything.  Maybe soon!

Cozumel-Cozumel was our port of shopping! Clarissa ended up buying a watch at one of the DI locations and I just browsed all the pretty jewelry.  We went to Senor Frogs for lunch and had drinks and even got a fun balloon hat!  (I gave mine to a kid on the ship when we got back-he kept looking at it all sad)

Belize-Oh Belize.  We chose Belize to do our one excursion of the trip.  Excursions started at $75 for each port and we didn’t want to pay a ton of $$ at each one.  Clarissa had always wanted to go zipling (I had been before in Costa Rica) and I had wanted to see something from the Mayan Ruins plus tubing and lucky for us there was one excursion where we could do both!!  We went ziplining through the jungle and afterwards we went cave tubing in an ancient Mayan ceremonial cave.

Zipling:  We got on the bus and our tour guide showed us all around as we made our way to the site, which took about an hour to get there.  We went ziplining first (thank goodness-I wouldn’t have wanted to zipline in wet clothes) but were able to put our stuff in a locker.  They fitted us for a harness and we went up the stairs to start our zipline.  We did about 8 (??) ziplines and finished where we started. 

Funny story:  As Clarissa was getting into her harness her helper was flirting with her, so she (thought) she was harmlessly flirting back.  When we got back to the platform, he pulled her aside.  Their conversation went like this:
Helper:  So did you think you would meet a hot Belizian while on your cruise?
Clarissa:  Umm, no?
Helper:  Well, did you think you would hook up with one?
Clarissa:  What?  No!
Helper:  Do you want to?
Clarissa:  No thanks. (and proceeded to run away to the safety of our group. LOL).  Later, she said “We were we supposed to go do it if that awful line would have worked?  A bush?”

The REALLY funny part was when we got back to the port we saw a t-shirt that said “I did it in a bush in Belize”  No lie!  We were kidding with her when we said that she would have had the best souvenir if she would have gotten that shirt.

Cave Tubing:  We changed into our swimsuits and picked up our tubs.  The cave was a short walk down a path and then in a hole with steps.  We all got in and made sure to hold on each other.  They took us to one end of the cave and showed us where they used to do several rituals.  There were some remnants of pots and other clay items that were still there but they said that a lot were either washed away in floods or thieves took them.  On the way back there is a place where you can either stay on your tube or get off and swim.  I thought it would be cool to swim so I did, completely forgetting that I usually FREAK OUT in open water.  I did start to freak out (quietly) and swam as fast as I could.  In my haste, I swallowed water and immediately thought, “I am going to pay for that later”.  (I did-I got really sick when I got home).  I also got an awful ear infection that is not 100% healed.  I am not 100% sure if it was from the water (or snorkeling in Roatan) but something got to me.  Just beware!
They fed us lunch and we got back on the bus to go home.  It was a fun excursion!

Roatan-I have been to Roatan before since my aunt has a house there.  Since we had done a lot in the other two ports our plan was to just relax in Roatan and do a little shopping.  We got off the boat and were looking for a taxi.  They were trying to get us to pay $25 each for the ride to my aunt’s house but I refused.  The taxi guy just kept saying (while showing us a map) how “far” it was.  The entire island is only 30 miles long!  Once he figured that I wasn’t buying it, we negotiated down to $10 total.  When we got there, Clarissa said “that wasn’t a far drive, it was like 5 minutes”.  I understand that they make money off tourists, but come on!

We got to my aunt’s house and took a tour of the new house they built.  There are two houses on the property but I had only seen one.  The new house is so pretty and full of handcrafted wood from the island.  I can’t wait to stay in that house the next time I go.

While my aunt went diving that morning, Clarissa and I went shopping and had breakfast.  We each got some souvenirs to take back with us and then went back to the dive shop to find my aunt.  She was about to go back out but I think she felt bad because I wanted to spend time with her.  So we compromised and we went with her on the boat to snorkel while she dove (dived? #grammar).  After we went snorkeling we went to lunch and they dropped us off at the ship.  I was sad that I didn’t get to see her more, but I will just have to go visit her!

The one thing I didn’t like about the ports was that we only got to go for a few hours.  You docked between 6-8 am (depending on which port) and had to be back around 4 pm.  You can’t really see the city/town/country that way, but I understand there is a schedule to keep.  Do those countries count as countries I have visited?

Port Charm Bracelet-Each port that Diamond’s International was at you can stop by and get a free charm for your charm bracelet.  The first stop we were able to get the bracelet and one charm.  In Cozumel you can get 5 charms total because there are 5 stores you can stop at.  Of course they use this as an incentive to get you to buy something, but really you don’t have to.  It is super cheap and made from gold tone paint, but it is a fun memento of your trip.  Be sure to bring it with you on your next cruise.  I heard they even have them in Alaska and Vegas to add to your collection.

Note:  Take your passport with you!  I didn’t know until it was too late but you can get your passport stamped at each location!  Say what?!!! 

Drink Packages
I thought we both had to get the same package, but we were able to get individual drink packages.  I got the one that was $19/day and Clarissa got the $45 a day package.  I liked the one I got because it included Starbucks which is the only place to get iced coffee.  Clarissa’s package was more than double mine but hers didn’t include coffee.  So she would buy me a drink at dinner (wine) or by the pool (cocktail) and I would buy her iced coffee whenever she wanted it.  It worked out.  I am not a big drinker to begin with, so the extra $ would have been wasted.  I put club soda, grenadine, and jalapeno (it’s good, try it) in my soda cup each time.  That’s pretty much what I drank every day.  In hindsight, I would have bought the soda package for half the price and just had that plus pay for my iced coffee separately.  Oh well, next time! 
Some couples were sharing a drink package to save on the costs.  Only one person can get the drinks though, so that might get annoying. 

Spa Packages
The first day we took a tour of the spa area so we could be added to a drawing for free stuff but we never won.  I got a massage mid-week and Clarissa got her hair highlighted.  The spa packages got cheaper and cheaper as the week went by.  My spa package was $50 more at the beginning of the week than what I paid for it and $25 less at the end of the week than what I paid for it.  Moral of the story:  get spa treatments towards the end of the week with whatever deal is in the Compass. 


That was my (super fun) cruise experience.   I really want to go back (different ports) and cruise again. They say that you either love it or hate cruising, but I loved it.  If you have any more questions, let me know!  
Souvenirs!

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

The Big Texan

I was updating my bucket list and marking off the completed ones and I noticed that I never wrote one for my food challenge in Amarillo!  #badblogger


Back in December a few friends of mine (and me) took a road trip to Amarillo to see the sights.  Bucket list item #3 for the weekend was attempting a food challenge.  I have always seen shows like Man vs. Food and Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives where they tour the country and try their hand at eating lots of food.    I have always heard of The Big Texan in Amarillo has a steak and potato challenge and thought I should try it.  Now, I like food but eating a ton of food usually doesn’t appeal to me.  BUT, the challenge is always fun.  I enjoy the challenge more than the idea of eating all that food.  The challenge costs $72 but if you finish it, you get it free.  


The challenge:
·         72 oz steak
·         Baked potato
·         Salad
·         Roll
·         Shrimp Cocktail
 You must complete the challenge in 1 hour while sitting at a specific table with a spotlight on you. 
 
Blurry picture!  Sorry
I knew I would never finish this, but it’s fun to accept the challenge. I thought I could just sit with my friends, but nooooo, they make you sit in a special table in the middle of the room with a spotlight on you.  My friends were upstairs watching from their table.  Luckily, I was saved the embarrassment of doing this by myself and two teenagers started about 10 minutes before me.  They were chowing down on their steak and I’m just going slowly.  I gave up when I had 17 minutes left (right after the teenagers left) since I was too full.  One of the guys only had 10 ounces of steak left, but he couldn’t go on.

The record is 4 minutes and it was a girl.  She didn’t have a gag reflex (guys must love her) and was basically shoveling food down her throat.  On top of eating it all in 4 minutes, she ate another one right after! 

My stomach hurt SO BAD after we left the restaurant.  It felt like a rock was sitting in it.  I will not be participating in anymore food challenges any time soon. :)  I literally had leftover steak for 3 days.  So much steak!



I got a free shirt at the end since I didn't finish it.