Dallas

Visiting: Steph -- one of my best friends from college

Monday – My flight landed in Dallas around 9pm. Steph wasn’t quite off work yet, and so I found myself sitting in the airport Friday’s, drinking a beer and watching the last period of the Stanley Cup Finals. People around me were funny – a mixture of Blackhawk and Lightning fans. After many “oohs”, “ahhs!” and “oh shits”, the Hawks eventually pulled through. They’re not my Pens, but I was rooting for them...despite the fact that they’ve won the cup twice already in the past 5 years. Eventually got a call from Steph – poor girl, getting lost in the craziness that is the Dallas airport. “WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT … PITTSBURGH IS SO MUCH EASIER” I stood outside while still on the phone with her, and we finally managed to find each other. Lots of hugs went down, considering that we hadn’t seen each other in a year. Steph and her boyfriend Mike live in Terrell, Texas…a small town just about an hour outside of Dallas. We all met up at Applebee’s for food and drinks before heading back to the apartment and going to bed.

Tuesday – Steph and I had breakfast at the Waffle House – delicious chocolate chip waffles. Afterwards, we headed over to the local airport where Mike gives flying lessons. Steph showed me around, and I met both Mike's mom & his grandmother. I had a phone interview at 1:00, and the pilot was nice enough to let me use his office for some peace & quiet. Got attacked by his cat (Ok, not attacked. But there was some definite attraction on his end. Not sure when I became a cat-whisperer.) throughout the entire time I was on the phone, but didn’t do half bad. Afterwards, Steph and I drove back to the apartment to get changed and then the two of us headed to Olive Garden, where she was training to be a waitress. Steph’s an awesome friend in that if she loves you enough, she’ll do just about anything for you. Since I was without a car, she let me borrow hers for the week to get myself around while she was at work. Thanks to that, I was able to stay at the restaurant and get myself some cheese raviolis (my favorite OG meal) before driving back to the apartment for a shower. Ok, shower is not the proper word to use here, considering that their only method of bathing is a claw-foot bathtub. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful tub – but Lord knows I’d want a real shower from time to time.

After Steph’s shift was finished, she and I picked Mike up from the airport and spent the rest of the night in a dive-bar just down the street. We ordered drinks and played pool. Decisions were made around 1:30am to go to

Walmart and get pizza. Always a bad idea. We also ended up with Oreos. Oh, and who knew that Walmart has $2 wine? I’m afraid to even know. We headed back to the apartment, ate our pizza, and watched Friends until we passed out.

Wednesday – There’s a tiny donut shop just down the street from where Mike and Steph live, and is run by one of Mike’s former flying students. She never lets them pay her, always saying “Get me next time!” – and so we walked out of the shop with a box full of free goodies to take with us to the airport. We sat with the others for a bit, enjoying our breakfast. I had an apple fritter. It was huge. And delicious. Since it was raining – as it did the entire time I was there, thanks to the hurricane hitting the southern part of the state – Steph and I decided that the perfect afternoon plans would consist of smoothies

and pedicures. She took me to a cute little shop called Bubble Bubble, where you can pick from all different types of fruity smoothie flavors, as well as add in different kinds of Boba (in case you’ve never seen them before, they’re little gummy balls that explode with juice when you bite into them) if your heart so desires. I choose to try a strawberry-banana smoothie with strawberry Bobas – YUM. We then headed to a local salon where we sipped on our drinks, chatted about old college memories, and got our toes done. It was quite the perfect girls-day-out. :)

Grabbed sandwiches from Whataburger for lunch – because it’s a Texas thing to do – and drove back the airport to eat with the others. Had myself a grilled chicken sandwich on rye bread, while Steph’s yelling, “I took her to a greasy fast-food place and she STILL manages to find something healthy!” Yeah, well…you know. ;-) Once it got to be late afternoon, Steph dropped me off at the apartment on her way to work, and I spent the evening reading and getting myself cleaned up and ready for a night out. Took a bath, and put on a little white dress and my brown ankle booties (Because when in Texas, you wear boots. Plus, those shoes are adorable.). The rain had stopped, and so the three of us decided to venture into the city in search of some cool bars. The first place we came to was fairly crowded for a Wednesday night, and they had live music going on. My friends and I sat at the bar right next to where the band was performing, having to yell our drink orders over to the bartender. We all started with beers, mine being a Dallas Blonde, then moved on to trying a mixed drink that we had seen people at the bar next to us order. I can’t remember now what it was – just that Steph and I were not huge fans.

Deciding that we had had enough of the loud music, we then walked up the street to another place that housed a downstairs bar, an open dance floor (though nobody was on it this particular evening), and a rooftop terrace. Oh, and Sonic the Hedgehog hooked up to a projector behind the bar. Not even kidding – you could sit and drink and play your favorite old-school video games. You can sure as hell bet that’s what Steph did! I tried playing against her for about one round, but she beat me. My beer of choice was called Blonde on Peaches, 11%. Yeah, things started to get a little fuzzy after that. Although it was a difficult feat, Mike and I managed to pull Steph away from the game so that we could check out the upstairs bar. It was beautiful – people hanging out, playing corn hole in the moonlight with the Dallas skyline in the background. We found a table close to the ledge (no worries, there was a railing) and sat down to enjoy our drinks. Managed to find myself a cactus – FINALLY – and though he was tiny, I got a picture with him all the same. (You would think that being in Texas, I would have seen one by then, but apparently they don’t grow in Terrell. Neither, it seems, do armadillos. I was quite sad about that.) Car, apartment, home, bed.

Thursday – I was a bit hungover. Hell, I think we all were. Except maybe Steph – she may have been okay. Spent most of the morning hanging out at the airport, lounging on the sofas and watching the rain fall outside. By lunchtime, though, the clouds had moved on…leaving us with the first bit of Texas sunshine I’d seen all week. Per his mom’s suggestion, Mike, Steph, and I hopped in his truck and drove down to the local taco joint to order food for lunch. Authentic beef & chicken tacos – can’t beat that. Michael even asked the guy for some Orange Fanta, something I hadn’t seen since my days of living in Costa Rica. Once back at the airport, we all sat around the corner table and shared the meal family-style, passing the styrofoam containers amongst each other. The food was delicious…as if there was any doubt having come from such a place. Definitely helped my stomach feel a bit better. Though still not 100%.

Now, from the moment I first got to Dallas, Steph had proposed this idea of taking me flying. Up until this point, however, the rain had put a bit of a damper on those plans. Despite being a bit apprehensive of how my stomach was feeling, I decided that I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to be in the air on such a beautiful afternoon. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you the official name of Mike’s plane – but I do know that it’s considered a light aircraft. Seats 4 people. Steph let me sit in the front, stating that she’s had and will have plenty of chances to play the role of co-captain. We got ourselves strapped into our seat belts, and Mike handed us both headsets to wear during the flight. I did fine for a while, looking out over the horizon and snapping pictures of the ground below. The captain even let me fly the plane! It’s pretty simple, really – though I will admit, that didn’t stop me from being nervous as all hell. You have a wide, U-shaped handle in front of you, and you turn it gently side-to-side to change the wing angle of the plane, while either pulling it towards you or pushing it away from you to control the nose. Steph and I had had practice on a simulator, but God knows flying a real plane is, quite naturally, different than a computer sim. Because, I mean…crashing a plane on the computer is much less dramatic than the thought of it happening when you’re thousands of feet in the air. Long story short – after about five minutes, I gave the controls back to Michael.

We flew all over Terrell, Mike occasionally pointing out different land marks here and there. And then he flew us up higher, into the clouds, Steph yelling like a little kid in the backseat. Sad to say, that was not a good idea for my stomach. Granted, it was a beautiful sight, but I definitely felt my lunch coming back up after that. Not sure if that’s old age talking, or just the hangover. Thankfully, I wasn’t actually sick – but it was a pretty damn close call. Once we got back to the ground, I

sat myself down on the pavement for a bit, letting the fresh air hug my face. When it came time for Steph to head into work, she helped me get my ass into the car and we drove back to the apartment. Despite feeling the way I did, I agreed to drive her to work so that I would have the car if need be. Once I got back from dropping her off, I took advantage of the quiet apartment and napped for a bit (something I never do), hoping that the extra sleep would help to settle my stomach. It worked.

After a quick bath, I drove back into Rockwall – where the Olive Garden is – and found myself getting dinner from a place right across the street called Freebirds World Burrito. It’s like Chipotle, but better. (Oh yes, I did.) You pick your meal – for example, a burrito, a bowl, a quesadilla – and then chose what type of meat and toppings you want. To no one’s great surprise, I ordered a buffalo chicken quesadilla on a wheat wrap. And Lord, was it delicious. At this point, I would say it was about 8:45. I was sitting at a long table in the middle of the restaurant, feet up on the chair across from me (such bad restaurant etiquette, I know), enjoying my food and thinking that I still had some time before Steph would call and say that she was done for the evening. She had, after all, been getting out around 9:30 every other night that week. Turns out I was wrong. She sent a text about halfway through my meal, saying that she’d be out in the next couple of minutes. So, I quickly finished up my last few bites, asked the nice gentleman behind the register for a box, and packed the rest of my quesadilla to go. Met up with Steph outside of Olive Garden, where she was standing on the phone with Mike. Neither of them had eaten, and so they were discussing food options. “Chili’s”, Steph kept saying. Well, Jesus knows I love Chili’s! Even though I had already eaten, I still agreed to go. I mean, duh – they have delicious margaritas.

So, we spent my last night in town sitting at a booth in the Chili’s bar – drinking margaritas, ordering food (on their part), and playing Life on one of those little screen-thingys that every restaurant now seems to have. Steph even informed us that Olive Garden plans to invest in them at some point in the future – a proposition that we all agreed would take away from that elegant, OG feel. If you’ve ever been to an Olive Garden, I’m sure you know what I mean. Despite our plans of having an early night in (since my plane was departing at 7am the following morning), we stayed out until about 11:30…and then even when we got back to the apartment, we stayed up chatting and watching stupid videos on YouTube. It wasn’t until about 1:00 that we finally climbed into bed. Didn’t sleep too much though, probably thanks to the nap I had taken earlier. Or possibly because of Jasper – Steph’s cat – who decided to perch himself on my chest and rub his face against my cheek. God knows I don’t always love cats…but when I do, it’s that cat. He’s just so cuddly…and not a dick, like most felines. He and I stayed up for another ½ hour, me rubbing his head, until we both fell asleep. And then the alarm went off at 3:30.

Friday – After an hour and a half of sleep, Steph got up with me and drove me to the airport. She wasn’t too happy that Michael wasn’t coming with her. Despite the early hour, I was surprised at how many other people there were in the airport. Managed to make it through TSA without any problems, though, and boarded my plane at 7. Once we landed in Cleveland, I got my car and drove to Chicago.