xphilehb | On The Road Again...Or Rather, Back From It

Coming back to work after a lovely four-day weekend to find the tax return from hell waiting for you is dreadful. Hence, I'm going to procrastinate on it for awhile and post about my trip instead. Here's what you need to know for this little tale:

Location: Rochester, MN
Characters:
Myself
Amy, the friend from Omaha that went with me
Sarah, the mutual friend that Amy and I went to visit
Brett, Sarah's boyfriend, at whose house we stayed
Background: Amy, Sarah and I met in college. We were all accounting majors. After college, Amy moved to Omaha for a job and Sarah and I stayed in Lincoln. In fact, Sarah and I ended up living in the same apartment complex (different apartments) for about a year until Sarah moved to Rochester to be with Brett, who had moved up there to work for IBM. Amy and Sarah bonded in college over a shared love of Fiestaware. I vowed to never be addicted to these dishes, as they are so freakin' expensive. However, I eventually caved and now all three of us love and adore them. And when together, we all tend to spend a wee bit too much money on them.

Wow. I'm pretty sure you actually don't need to know most of that, but apparently I like to talk about myself. Now onto the trip...

Friday:
Amy and I arrived in Rochester around 6:30 on Friday evening. After unloading our luggage at Brett's, the four of us went out to dinner at John Hardy's Barbecue. The restaurant is not much to look at, but the food is good. Sarah then drove us around Rochester so we could see her apartment and the Mayo Clinic, in particular. Then we stopped for some ice cream before heading back to Brett's, where we planned out what stores we wanted to hit the next day in our gigantic shopping spree. (I should point out here that Sarah is a highly trained, hardcore, marathon shopper.) Sarah, Amy and I all slept in Brett's basement. It was like a slumber party. We stayed up late talking and giggling until we all sort of drifted off to sleep. It was fun!

Saturday:
We woke up early and hit the road at 8:30. First we drove out to the Albertsville outlet mall, where I picked up a couple shirts, two pairs of flip flops and some new PJs at Eddie Bauer and a new polo at Tommy Hillfiger. We went into several other stores including Coach, apparently just to torture ourselves with the pretty, pretty purses that were way too expensive to even contemplate buying. I found the most lovely blue purse there. I wanted it sooooooo badly, but alas, I couldn't convince myself to spend $130 on it. Which is good.

After the outlet malls we hit Applebee's for lunch and then drove back to the Mall of America. That mall is huge, so we didn't even cover a third of it, I'm sure. Be we did our fair share of walking as we hit all the department stores looking for Fiestaware glasses for Amy. She was bound and determined to have them. Sadly, we did not find any there. Amy and I also hit several of the rides at the amusement park. I'm an amusement park enthusiast, so for me, the rides were pretty lame. But for Amy, who has never been to an amusement park before, they darn near made her sick. At a little after six, Amy and I were dead tired while Sarah was still going strong. We left the mall and drove back to Rochester, where we stopped at Marshall Fields and finally found Fiestaware glasses for Amy. Of course, Sarah and I ended up buying some too.

We then headed to Dos Amigos, a Mexican restaurant, for dinner. Sarah had taken a Benadryl for her allergies and was suddenly so sleepy that we got the food to-go. We went back to Brett's, where Amy and I ate our dinner and Sarah immediately went to bed. Amy and I just chilled out until we went to sleep ourselves.

(Sidenote: I was attacked by an escalator at the Mall of America. I have two small cuts on the back of my right leg now from where one of the steps came up and bit me. Ugh!)

Sunday:
On Sunday we all slept in a bit and then went to mass. Sarah and I aren't Catholic, but Amy is. She was deadset on going to church and on going to a Catholic church, so we went with her. We then went to a really good Italian restaurant called Victoria's for lunch. After lunch, we headed out to Red Wing, MN, the home of Red Wing Pottery. But what we were really going for was Fiestaware. The pottery store there sells it, and they sell it for pretty cheap. So we all loaded up on Fiestaware. I'm ashamed to say how much I spent, especially since I have no room for it in my kitchen cupboards.

After Red Wing, we headed back to Rochester, where Brett made us incredibly yummy pizzas for dinner. On the way home, we were joking around about Amy's wedding (she's not even engaged yet), so we stopped and picked up some bridal magazines. Sarah and I then spent an hour or so planning Amy's wedding and putting various pictures from the magazines on this black poster board that Sarah happened to have. Man, we did a stellar job. All the hard work is done for Amy now. ;-) So yeah, we ate the pizza, drank some wine and played a game called Apples to Apples. It was fun! We then watched several episodes of Scrubs. I think I love that show. I know I love Zach Braff. *sigh*

Monday:
We slept in and lazed around a bit once we woke up. Sarah then took Amy and I to Caribou Coffee and to a really cool Barnes and Noble that was built in an old theatre downtown. It was so pretty! And, of course, none of us left without buying a couple books. Then it was back to Brett's to pack up the car, eat some lunch and be on our merry way home.

So, there you have it. That was ridiculously long, so if you stuck with me, thanks! All in all, a very enjoyable trip. And now, I must get back to the tax return that haunts me...

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: work
Current Music: the radio