Relaxing in Punta Cana

Back in the winter, Irina and I were ice skating at Millennium Park in the Chicago cold. We were talking about how we had taken various trips- whether it be to visit a friend, go on a school interview, travel a particular city, but neither of us had taken a vacation in awhile. I see a significant difference between a trip and a vacation; a trip focuses on traveling somewhere with a purpose, i.e. visiting a friend or seeing all a place has to offer, and a vacation's main purpose is relaxation. 

A few weeks later, Irina reached out to a travel agent and sooner than later, we were going to an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic just outside of Punta Cana for six days in the middle of November. I had some days off for work, she had a break in between grad school quarters; it was great.

Irina and I at the hotel

We arrived at our hotel to learn that it was five hotels on one property, with a huge area and nearly six pools. Our building was by the lobby, and just a few blocks back was the main pool and the ocean front. 

For five full days, we woke up, went to the buffet and sat at the beach all day. Our beach time started with riding the waves and treading water, then moved onto a zumba, salsa and merengue class in the quick sand and then ended with some reading in the sun. After a super exhausting morning, we took a nap in the air conditioned room, ate dinner and went to bed. It was fabulous. 

Dancing on the beach!

A quick game we played was "Guess the time," as we often had no idea what day of the week or time it was (we didn't need to!). Our room didn't even have a clock, and we typically overshot the time. We so had fun guessing where people were from and what language they spoke, as the majority of guests were not from the U.S. We met and came across others from Canada, Portugal, Spain, England, Australia, Russia, France, Germany and more- speaking any of these native languages on any given day. It makes sense due to its location that it would attract such a variety of people, but was cool to be in such a global hotel and speak Spanish again. 

Our hotel pool

I hadn't been to an all-inclusive since 8th grade, so it was a different perspective to experience it ten years later. The food was not the best we've ever eaten, but got the job done. Having an unlimited open bar had an inverse effect, as knowing that everything was available at any time allows you to try everything but not require you to finish it. Lastly, I learned that on vacation, I don't like to socialize. Overall, it was an awesome, refreshing trip and I now understand the meaning of vacation and recharge! 

Beach time

2012 Highlights

As I publish my first blog post of 2013, it's time to recall some notable moments from the past year.

• I turned 21 and got a horizontal license. 

With amazing celebrations both in Chicago and at Mizzou, I had a great time spending my birthday with friends. We stayed in the nicest hotel suite I'll probably have in my life, and I was lucky to have everyone I wanted to see come and share drinks together!

Sherman, Kathryn, me, Shaina and Andrew at the Hilton Chicago Suite January 2012

21st at the Heidelberg in Columbia

• Chaired Mizzou's Relay For Life, which fundraised more than $85,000 for American Cancer Society.

After a year of planning, the 5th Relay For Life of Mizzou was on March 16-17, 2012. The event came together very well with representatives from Relay For Life nationally, more than 1,200 participants and about $8,000 fundraised just that evening. 

Charlie, Bret and I (Relay co-chairs) at Relay 2012 with Truman

• Traveled across the country. 

Traveling is one thing I didn't realize how much I do until I thought about it. I went to:

-Colorado to visit Jesse

-San Diego to explore with Elena

-Project Mexico for another homebuilding trip!

-Iowa to see Helen

-Michigan to see Stacey and Nouno Peter

-Kansas City to stay with Laura over the summer 

-Missouri and Illinois (duh)

-Wisconsin pretty much every week of being home for church 

-New York, New Jersey & DC with Stacey over spring break and saw Maria, Kara, family & Evita the musical!

-Ohio and Indiana visit Yiayia Sophie

to total 14 states!

Jessie and I at Rocky Mountain National Park in February

Stacey and I in Times Square for Evita on Broadway in March

Project Mexico June 2012 for the first home build of the summer

My first Michigan football game with Stacey in November

• Best teamwork experience of college working as a researcher for Mojo Ad.

After surviving my management of strategic communication class that I'll soon be the TA for, I was accepted into Mojo Ad, Mizzou's student-run ad agency, with the researcher position. There was an open spot was on Team Maven and my team developed a "Let's Happy Hour" campaign for TGI Friday's and won!

Team Maven at our client presentation in April 

• Went alumna from my sorority after a great three years, some awesome socials and planning a sisterhood retreat! 

After three years in Phi Mu serving as PR, VP and sisterhood chair, I went alumna and am no longer an active member. My pledge family is closer than ever and I am forever thankful for my daughters Dani and Liz, Shelley and close friends from my pledge class and floor- Kathryn, Alex, Jen, Emily & Jordin. 

Phi Mu Sisterhood Retreat at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City in February

Last Phi Mu Formal in April

• Oh, I graduated college. 

It was a little anticlimactic since I've stayed for grad school, but I walked in Mizzou's graduation ceremonies for Honors and Journalism graduating cum laude. 

Mom, Dad and I on the quad after the Honors Graduation Ceremony in May

• Starcom internship.

Working a rigorous internship in media research taught me the reward of working an intellectually stimulating job and sifting through information. A lot of work is proprietary or disclosed by NDAs, but I had the opportunity to work with an excellent Integrated Insights team and group of mentors at Starcom MediaVest Group this summer, and am even back for winter break. 

• Got to know downtown Chicago. 

Throughout our 11 years living in Chicago, we have stuck to visiting the same few places with and kept to the touristy places downtown. As college have progressed and I was working in the city on Wacker & State Street, I was at the prime location for exploring River North and other parts of downtown. After work my friends would go to happy hour, meet up in different areas like Lincoln Park and even staying at some of the nicest hotels like the Hilton Chicago, Palmer House, Allerton and Hyatt Regency. Those adventures made me not look past living downtown for a few years and want to continue working at Starcom and exploring the city.

The Chicago skyline from a boat cruise I went on with work from Navy Pier

At Oak Street Beach for a free vendor event in August

• Went skydiving. 

Inspired by a Groupon email, my sisters and I went skydiving together in July! It was as exhilarating as you think it would be and felt like flying frozen in time. We dove from more than 15,000 feet in the air at 100+ miles per hour, and the biggest shock for me was the temperature change in the 2.5 minute fall. It was definitely a success!

Eleni, me and Maria before the dive 

In the air!

• Started to explore Milwaukee after leaving Sts. Peter & Paul.

This June, my dad was reassigned from our Glenview church to Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee. Despite the details, commute and driving past six other churches Sunday mornings, Milwaukee parishioners were welcoming and we had some nice summer adventures at the pool.  

The family at our last Easter at Sts. Peter & Paul after 11 years, the longest we've lived somewhere!

• Started grad school and got my first 4.0.  

This semester, I was enrolled in graduate classes focusing on international journalism, the history of the mass media, qualitative research, convergence journalism and Missouri business news. If taking five classes and being a TA wasn't enough, I was adjusting to conversational courses, intelligent debates and classes with nontraditional and international students. I was reading about 1,000 pages per week, writing 3 papers each Monday and learned a variety of tools to produce this deer hunting story. It was an intense semester!

• Worked an assistantship. 

Being a TA has been one of the most intense experiences I have had in college (and next semester- I'll be a TA in two capacities). The opportunity to work with professors, manage students and review their work has been an insightful one and I have learned a lot from a business and educational standpoint. 

• Celebrated Mizzou joining the SEC.

This September, Mizzou had its inaugural SEC game against University of Georgia! Although it was a rough football season, the tailgating was worth it and the basketball games have been great.

Our first Mizzou football game in the SEC vs. Georgia in September

• Lived in my first apartment with the best roommates ever- and dealt with it burning down. 

Memorial Day Weekend, I got a phone call that the Brookside apartment complex my friends and I were moving into in August had burned down. After a lot of stress and doubt, our apartment was in the 1/3 of the building that was ready in August and Kathryn, Shaina, Laura and I moved in together for the first time since freshman year- with Sherman, Andrew and our friends Cliff & Stein next door. It's been a blast and an adventure dealing with our landlords- but always nice to have company! 

Kathryn, me, Shaina and Laura at a wine tasting in Hermann, Mo. 

Both of our apartments at Kathryn's birthday celebration

• Watched TV and enjoyed it.

Revenge, Girls, the Newsroom and Nashville have kept me looking forward to watching weekly television- something I haven't done since Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars in middle school. TV gives you so much to talk about and look forward to! 

I'm thankful for a great year!

By the numbers

• 25 Facebook albums, 213 new friends, 36 pages liked, 3223 tagged photos and 2020 tweets 
• 349 birthday wishes online 
• 457 LinkedIn connections 
• Retired my old Macbook Pro with 22,1260 pictures saved on it

What's in store for 2013?

• Traveling the US the next few weeks- 8 states this month! 
• Acclimating to a new computer and camera 
• Running a Career Fair
• Writing a thesis
• Being employed
• Receiving a master's degree 
• Going to weddings 

Not done yet, Chicago

If you would have asked me at the beginning of this summer if I would move back to Chicago after graduation, I would have smiled & said no. Why did I limit it out so quickly? The idea of living in Chicago seemed like the "easy" thing to do, rather than where I truly wanted to be. (Side note: We live in an economy where you go for the job before the location, and the fact that I even considered this is pretty ridiculous. What a Millennial mindset). It's the simple routine for a North Shore young adult- go to high school, receive a good college education, find a job in downtown Chicago, get an apartment there with some high school/college friends and take the Metra back to your parents' house when you need free food or a car. Pretty straightforward, right?

Over the past few years, I started to fall in love with some U.S. cities I have visited and considered them places to move after graduation. The opportunities I've had to travel throughout college pointed out how other people live and feel compatible in the cities they reside in. Cities like Boulder, DC, Kansas City, Boston, San Diego and New York all have very different feels and I made a conscious effort to observe how people find comfort there. I could envision myself living and working in some of them, but thought of others as livable, but a place I'd rather keep as a vacation spot. Particularly, I fell in love with San Diego for its west coast feel, diverse culture, medium-sized town feel and proximity to Mexico.

When you travel or vacation somewhere, you spend a lot of time becoming acquainted with the area and trying all the best-of-the-bests. Studying abroad in Buenos Aires taught me the true meaning of this. My roommates and I bought travel books and made efforts to hit every attraction and restaurant we could. We would choose a burrow of town and explore it in and out--its art museums, parks, churches, food--and create an impression from there. I applied this travel mindset to every city I went to and explored the streets of them as well. After my parents decided to transition to Milwaukee, Chicago really became out of the picture for next summer's job search. But, working a wonderful internship this summer in Chicago right on Wacker & State Street has changed my mind.

As I sat on the Metra train commuting from the suburbs to the city everyday for ~80 minutes, I pondered about my last few summers in Argentina and at Project Mexico. I can tell you every cross street, where to eat, where the places to be are and what I like about each section of town. And while I can do that with the North suburbs of Chicago,  I definitely cannot do that with the city. And that is not okay.

I'm familiar with the tourist areas from showing friends around, and could easily navigate Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park, Sheridan Avenue, Navy Pier or Evanston. But the fact that I couldn't tell you which bars to go to in Lincoln Park or Lakeview, where to eat in Wicker Park or what's in Lincoln Square is pathetic. Being "from the suburbs" is not a valid excuse. So having a lot of good friends working downtown--we made it our goal to see as many areas of the city as we could and just EXPLORE. Any unfamiliar territory was game--for happy hour, dinner or even just roaming around.

Our attempts at reaching this goal have been pretty successful. Driving down Lake Shore Drive puts a smile to my face. I've killed the River North area, went through most of the Loop, gone through Grant Park, the strip by North Avenue Beach and gone out in Lincoln Park. But the feeling sparked me that there was so much more to see. I wasn't done yet.

So stay open-minded about where to live and don't feel like you're settling if you're staying where you're grew up. There are still places to see--in both the city and the suburbs--and just because it was routine when you were younger doesn't mean there's not more to life there.

Check out some photos of some of the Chicago adventures this summer!

The river view from a window in my office

The guacamole woman at a beautiful rooftop restaurant in River North

Anna and I at Oak Street Beach downtown

What a view from a beach!

The view of Montrose Beach from a friend's apartment

The lobby of the Palmer House

And this is more touristy- but got to go on a boat cruise at work & see the skyline! 

Special edition: You can even have fun in the suburbs!

Meredith and I rode our bikes to the Botanic Gardens where I hadn't been since middle school- so nice!

Helen and Dean gambling at Rivers Casino in Des Plaines!

 And Greek festivals, of course!

Family adventure

After hearing about my sister and some of my friends' experiences skydiving last summer, it sounded like something I wanted to try. This spring, I stumbled across a Groupon for skydiving in Wisconsin--and figured, what a great graduation present to myself! My sisters and I went on this adventure together this past Saturday- jumping out of a plane from 14,000 feet in the air.

Eleni, me and Maria- all in our college shirts!

Many asked us if we were scared, and none of us really were. I thought I'd panic the morning of the dive, but never felt a fear in my stomach. The biggest scare came from signing three packets of waivers claiming the skydiving company cannot be sued for injuries, death or any issues that arise in your experience. My sisters and I were those people that actually read the waiver, and it brought more ideas to our heads. You sign off on saying the company is not responsible for any mid-air collisions, issues with the harness or other equipment. You initial a statement that says "I understand that parachute jumping will expose me to risk of personal injury or death." They really know how to get you- you can pay $500 to NOT sign parts of the waiver that let you sue them. Nice to know that if you die skydiving, it costs the price of the dive + $500 to sue them. Oh America.

Enough about legal documentation. The experience is technically "tandem skydiving," where there is an experienced skydiver behind you and your harnesses are latched together when you jump. You sit through a short class of instructions, where we learned that diving from 14,000 feet up gives you slightly over a minute of free fall, then some parachute time. There is no depth perception at that altitude, and you fall at 135 mph, and when the parachute goes up at 5,000 feet, you slow to 24 mph. Another reassuring statistic they provide is "jumping out of this plane is statistically safer than you driving here." Interesting!

Us on the plane with our tandem buddies and photographers

We waited a few hours, got harnessed up and met our instructors and photographers that would be on the plane with us! They document and videotape your experience too and do a great job (see photos below).  Maria, Eleni and I jumped from youngest to oldest, and all enjoyed it.

The coolest aspect to me was that it didn't feel like "diving" or "freefalling" - it felt like floating or flying in the air. The speed was unreal and seeing the land below, watching you get your depth perception back and seeing lake Michigan was phenomenal. It was the slowest minute of my life, taking in the beauty and not feeling a bit of fear doing it. The temperature was about ~3 degrees colder for every 1,000 feet up, so the cold air felt amazing. No one got sick, and I was the only sister who felt slightly nauseous after flipping and spinning in circles with my tandem instructor.

I'd highly recommend skydiving to anyone interested in being adventurous and assure you that it will be one of the most captivating minutes of your life!

Check these pictures out to see more!