Love, Italian Food, and Canada.

Last week, S and I celebrated our 5th anniversary! Its hard to believe it has been 5 years since we have started dating, but when I think about where we were in our lives when we first met, I guess it makes sense that it has been that long! I was 19, a sophomore at UCLA, preparing to study abroad in the Netherlands, and totally unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. S was 20, a junior, a pre-med student that was planning to start studying for his MCAT later that year. Now, 5 years later, we both are medical students living in Michigan. S is about to graduate and start a surgery residency...and I am a second year medical student, preparing to take my board exams! Its crazy all that we have been through, but I am so happy and so thankful that we have continued to support and love each other throughout our crazy journeys towards reaching our goals. :)

The night of our anniversary, S came to East Lansing and took me on a date. He knocked on the door to pick me up with a box of chocolates and a dozen red roses! It was so sweet! Then, he took me to our FAVORITE restaurant in Lansing, Bravo Cuchina Italiano. We had lots of yummy food: Miscato, spinach-artichoke dip with Parmesan incrusted bread for appetizer, Chicken Scaloppini (Chicken+portebello mushrooms+lemon caper sauce+diced tomatoes+feta cheese), and Creme Brulee for dessert...delicious. It was such a fun dinner, reminiscing about the last 5 years!

This weekend, we continued our anniversary celebration by taking a weekend trip to Canada! I had never been so we thought it would be a fun little weekend getaway. We had reservations at a little Bed and Breakfast in London, Ontario from Friday-Sunday. Sadly, on Friday morning, the person who owned the place called us and said that she had to cancel our reservations. So, we were temporarily out of housing. Luckily, we were able to get a reservation at the "Delta London Armouries". Although I was originally totally bummed about not staying in a little bed and breakfast, our hotel was a serious upgrade. We had one of the top floor suites with private lounge. In this lounge, that gave us free breakfast, free coffee, free snacks, and free booze in the evenings. I felt so fancy!

They even gave us robes!!!! 

Upon arriving to London, we decided to go to a restaurant called "Crabby Joes"! It was a pretty cool place, with lots of people our age...so I think it was a pretty good find! After we were done at the restaurant, we decided to head in for the night, because we were going to get up very early the next day to drive to Niagra Falls!

We arrived at Niagra at around 11 AM and immediately went to the see the Falls! It was really pretty with the ice in the water, but oh so very cold! We had to take many breaks by going in doors...but it was still totally worth it! We also went to explore the downtown area by going to the Niagra Casino, a fudge factory, the Niagra arcade, and the Guinness Book of World Records Museum...we then headed back on the bus, looked at the falls one last time...and then decided to head back to London, before it got too dark/snowy.

Warming up on the bus

Niagra Casino

Fudge Factory

Grave's Disease

After we got back to London, we went to the lounge in our hotel and had some wine/beer and some cheese/crackers/egg roles. Delicious and (again) so fancy.  We then went back to our room, watched "She's All That" and then went to bed. [Yes, I am aware we act like an "old couple" and go to bed way earlier than we should on vacation...but hey, it was so very relaxing!]

The next day, we headed out for one last stop in London, to an all-you-can-eat Sushi Restaurant, that my friend Bobby (who went to undergrad in London) recommended to us....and boy, am I glad that we made this stop! Soooo delicious....and pretty dang cheap for how much/what quality food we got! After we were done eating, it was time to drive home and get back to reality...

It was such a great trip. I can't wait until our next one! :)

Disneyland [photo blog]

The third and final part of our Winter adventure was to Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks in Anaheim, CA.

Day 1:
After S finished his interview in LA, picked me up from Santa Monica beach and drove us to Anaheim, we checked into our hotel and went to Downtown Disney for the night. There, we walked around to explore the different shops and had dinner with two great friends: Kelsey and Lyle. I don't think I have seen either of these two since their wedding last May, so I was very excited to get together with them for dinner at my favorite Disney restaurant: Tortilla Joes.

Legoland Store: Beauty and the Beast

Legoland Store: Toy Story 

Legoland Store: Aladdin

Day 2: Disneyland!

:)

Finding Nemo Ride 

I'M GUNNA WRECK IT! 

Pooooooh Bear

Evening Christmas Parade 

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Santa's Sleigh!

Day 3: Disney's California Adventure theme park (+ the new "Cars Land")

In line for the new Car's Ride
{side note: we had fast passes, but the
 normal line was 2.5 hours!!!}

Art Class

S's Frankenweenie drawing

My Tigger and Franekweenie drawings

The magic room/The Beast's Library

Jessie 

Such a great end to our vacation....I love Disneyland.

Los Angeles Vacation

After leaving Boston, S and I headed back to one of our favorite places: LA. We arrived around noon, got our rental car, and started thinking about what we wanted as our first meal back in Los Angeles. After living there for four years, we each had our personal favorites and not enough time to re-visit them all. In the end, we decided with a California Classic: In-n-out Burger!

"Our first family car" 

Driving through LA....*sigh*

yum. 

After we re-fueled our bodies, we headed to our hotel: The Beverly Inn. This inn was very...interesting. In one sense, it was great, because it was in the heart of Beverly Hills, but in every other aspect, it was a crap hole. Seriously though, this inn was falling apart. I'm glad we only spent one night there...

After we checked in, S got ready for his residency interview dinner, while I stayed back in the room and took a nap. After he was done with dinner, we decided to take a little trip back to Westwood to visit some of our favorite sites, get me dinner at one of the best/worst Thai food restaurants you could ever choose to eat at (Mr. Noodle), and have desert at the infamous Diddy Riese! We then ended up simply walking the streets of Westwood for a while, reminiscing about college. We also drove to my old apartment, S's old fraternity house, and my old sorority house! As silly as it sounds, I think this was the highlight of my entire trip. It was so great to be back in Westwood...I didn't realized how much I missed it. 

[Shout out: P*Posse and Sunday Night Dinners]

<3 <3 <3

S's Frat: Delta Sigma Phi

My sorority: Gamma Phi Beta

The next day, while S had his interview, I checked out of the hotel and headed to Santa Monica beach for a relaxing afternoon. After navigating through the bus system without any major problems, I spent about 3 hours at the beach. I spent about 2 1/2 of these hours simply laying in the sand, listening to music and taking pictures. I spent the other 30 minutes walking up and down the Santa Monica Pier. It was so ridiculously relaxing...I could probably have laid on that beach all day long!  

When S finished up at his interview, he drove into Santa Monica, picked me up and we headed off for our last adventure: Disneyland!

Boston Vacation!

After finishing up my semester, I left for a week long trip to Boston and Las Angeles. S was interviewing for residency, so I decided to follow along and explore! I had never been to Boston, so I was very excited about that...and Los Angeles means re-visiting UCLA and going to Disneyland!

We left East Lansing on Monday morning to head to Detroit Metro Airport...We were scheduled to leave at around 1 PM, layover in Baltimore, and then arrive in Boston at 5 PM. However, after sitting in the airport with delays for a while, we were informed that our flight would be canceled, due to poor weather conditions in Baltimore. Luckily, S quickly called southwest and re-booked us on a flight only 1 hour later that went through Chicago then to Boston. We were able to hop on right away, and make it without any delays! The only downside: because of the change in flights, the airline misplaced my baggage for the night...thankfully, it was delivered to my hotel the next day.

After arriving in Boston, we (fairly easily) navigated through the subway/train system and arrived at our hotel: the Holiday Inn Brookline. From the long day of travel, we decided that it was a good day for an early bed time.

On our first train into the city! 

The next day, we woke up fairly early, ate breakfast in our hotel and then headed into town to do some historical site-seeing. Our first stop, the Boston Tea Party Re-enactment.

This was a really cool experience! [If any of you readers is ever planning on going to Boston, I highly recommend this]. We started out by meeting in a room that looks like an old school house. All of a sudden, a man dressed in Colonial clothing runs in, speaking Old English and begins rallying us together to fight against the British. Yes, it was the night before the Boston Tea Party and we were all being recruited to participate in this important moment of history. We then boarded the Boston Tea Party ship and through crates of tea overboard in to the Boston Harbor.

Throwing tea overboard! 

After the re-enactment, we were led to a tea shop where we sampled some tea and cookies. We then went through an interactive museum all about the American Revolution. It was a really fun site-seeing spot!

Boston Tea Party Gift Shop:
Boston LOVES their lobster memorabilia! 

After the Boston Tea Party, we asked a local what other things we could do nearby. They told us to go to the spot where the Boston Massacre occurred. We went to the spot, took some pictures, went to the museum, and listened to an interesting talk about different perspectives of what happened that night in Boston.

We then decided it was time to go back to the hotel. S had to get ready for his residency dinner (which always occur the night before the interviews). So, we went back, he got ready, I ordered room service and watched movies for the night! So relaxing! :)

Room Service + Grey's Anatomy

The next day, S had to leave early to go to his interview bright and early. He started at 6:45 AM!!! I slept in, took my time getting ready, and then took a free shuttle over to the Harvard Hospitals location. I brought my First Aid Board review book with me (so that I can one day pass my boards and get a residency spot too haha), sat down in the lobby of the hospital, and waited for S to finish.

Once he was done, we both went together to walk down the road the Harvard Medical School. In their library, they have a little museum (Warren Anatomical Museum) where they had Phineas Gage's skull! So, this science nerd obviously needed to see that!

After we left the museum, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for the night. Our plans: see the Boston Ballet's "The Nutcracker". I have always loved seeing the Nutcracker...I don't think that there is anything more Christamassy than that...so I couldn't wait.

The ballet was absolutely beautiful and it was so fun to dress-up and pretend to be cultured for the night!

After the ballet, we went home and went right to bed. We had to be up very early the next day, because it was time to leave Boston and time to move on to our next city: Los Angeles!