And Now Presenting: My Weekend With Sara

Who I don't see enough. I mean, really. People who crack each other up as much as we crack each other up really shouldn't be away from each other for such long stretches of time.

I took the Amtrak down to Bloomington Sunday morning. [Side note: trains are awesome. I love them a little bit. I want to take one that goes somewhere over night. For seriously. I mean, I realize sleeping in a sleeper car on a train is WAY less glamorous than it sounds, but to me it sounds like an crazy adventure waiting to happen.] 



While I'm on the train, Sara sends me a text message:
SARA: Hey, did you eat?
ME: Do M&Ms count?
SARA: No! Great. I have a wonderful idea!

So I get to Bloomington and Sara tells me she's taking me somewhere special for breakfast. Where does my friend take me? Uncle Tom's Pancake House.
Seriously.
Only in Bloomington-Normal.
I think it should be called Uncle Tom's Pancake Cabin. Because if you're going to call your establishment Uncle Tom's...you may as well just go the whole nine yards. It was delicious though. Uncle Tom makes some mean flapjacks and bottomless cups of coffee are always appreciated. Especially when you woke up at 5am to catch the 7am train out of Chicago.

After eating breakfast we went back to Sara's super cute apartment. There we caught up a bit, laughed a lot and played some wii. Which, turns out, I SUCK at. Sara kicked my butt at everything from shooting to table tennis to cow racing. Yes. Cow Racing. It was slightly awesome.

After playing wii, we went for a walk by little pond behind her apartment.

I threw rocks in the water because its pretty much the best thing ever, a) It's fun to throw things. b) When rocks hit the water they make what may be one of the best sounds in the world:


Then I had to be an adult and take a picture:


After our walk/throwing rocks in the pond adventure we had to leave for SARA'S SHOW!! Sara was in this show called Pirates of Penzance. It was really funny. There were singing pirates. They had cool swords. I wanted one. Sara was fabulous as always. I think she should always carry around a parasol, mostly 'cause she could smack me with it when I start to annoy her:


We went to dinner with her parents at this place called Luca's. It brought back memories for me. And not good ones. Luca's is the place where I did my most outrageous experimenting in college. Feeling adventurous, my friend and I once decided to try a basket of their "famous" fried chicken livers. They were pretty much disgusting. Anyway, now I have happy memories of Luca's because I ate a delicious pizza and not chicken livers. What was I thinking!??!?
Then we went back to Sara's apartment.
We played some Phase 10.
We watched some of Hook with Sara's roomie, Erin.
Then we may or may not have had a bottle of wine and played Mario Kart. I am glad no pictures from this period of time exist.
Then we crashed.

In the morning, Sara made breakfast. It's been a long time since someone made me breakfast. I felt special.
Cutest ever:


Chocolate milk is always a good choice. Sara had me "pose" for this picture. In the process of posing and picture taking I used way too much syrup. Oh darn.

The she said I looked too distressed in this picture and I had to take another one...

"Look excited."


While breakfasting, Sara made me watch The Sound of Music. Which I had never seen before. When she learned this information I thought she was going to have a heart attack. It wasn't kosher at all. So we had to rectify the situation and I was educated in the ways of Julie Andrews. I also learned that, "When you know the notes to sing, You can sing most anything". And those notes just happen to be: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do!


Then it was intermission. Seriously, it's a long ass movie:


And what better way to intermiss from The Sound of Music than to head to downtown Bloomington for a spell and do fun things. Like...

Sit at a coffee shop and drink coffee...

Fabulous.



And while sitting at said coffee shop we saw a woman walk by who looked like she stepped out of the Marshall Field's catalog from the 1950s. (Hard to see in this picture, but Sara and I were like..."Is this girl for REAL??)


And then we went shopping. And tried on hats. Duh.




And after shopping we were hungry. So we ate food at this really good bakery, where Sara happens to work:


After lunch, we went back to Sara's. Time for the second half of The Sound of Music! GET EXCITED!!




And then more wii...


Curses. I was better at this last night while drinking wine. I lost. Hard.



And then it came time for me to leave. Here we are at the train station. Sara look fabulous. Me looking ridiculous. To be fair, the sun was in my face.



Back home at Union, waiting for the papa to come get me 'cause my train was late getting in and I didn't catch my train back to Mt. P. Lousy Amtrak! (I still think you're super fun though)