A weekend AWAY from school!

Lately it's been hard to find time away from our homework and rehearsals for each other. In fact, it's been impossible. Finally a few weeks ago I got a brilliant idea to plan a "mini vacation" away from Provo! It had to consist of JUST US and include NO HOMEWORK. This week we barely saw each other at all because I had morning and evening rehearsals every day, and Eric had tech rehearsals until midnight every night. When yesterday afternoon finally rolled around, we were more than anxious to leave!

Where did we go? No where special. Salt Lake City. I know, I know. It sounds lame. But it was about as far as we could go in 24 hours, and it still felt amazing to get away. We checked into our hotel and then explored the new City Creek Mall. Then we walked around Temple Square (I can't wait for the Christmas lights to be put up)! We wandered for a while trying to decide on a restaurant for dinner. While wandering, we stopped by this AMAZING waffle place called BRUGES that our brother has been telling us we had to try! We decided to pass on waffles, due to them being full of gluten, but we got an order of giant fries and enjoyed them (anyone who knows me knows I really REALLY like fries...as long as they're not fried in an oil I'm allergic to). While sharing our fries, we started really missing Europe (well that's something we thought we would never say...). Everything about this little small waffle store reminded us so much of the small waffle stores we went to in Poland. The music was authentic, the menu, the size of the store, and everything else.

 We did a lot  more reminiscing when we went into a small German shop we found by the Capitol Theater. It was full of candies, chocolates, pastries, and even souvenirs that were all things we'd gotten in Germany! We really miss Germany. Especially the food. And the music. And the beautiful landscapes. We are going to start going back to that store when it gets closer to Christmas time...because no where in the world has better chocolate than Germany.

We finally ate dinner at the Blue Iguana, another place that made us miss Europe. You had to go down a narrow stairway to find the restaurant in a basement, the service was lousy and took almost 15 minutes for a waiter to even show up at our table, and the "Authentic Mexican Food" tasted just about as authentic as the nasty "Mexican Food" we'd eaten in Poland. We still enjoyed the food, because we were starving by this point, and we had some good laughs as we talked about our funny experiences this Summer in Europe.

Walking around downtown Salt Lake made us both feel like we were in Europe...weird. There were a lot of homeless people, nasty and creepy old apartments that towered over business and restaurants, and there were a lot of stinky and dirty streets. I make it sound like it was awful, but we really do miss it. Hopefully we'll get to go back there soon! The rest of the night we watched football in our hotel while I ate some dairy-free ice cream and Eric enjoyed his coke zero (can you tell we were both in vacation mode?). Day light savings couldn't have happened on a better weekend.

Sunday we ventured out into the middle of no where...literally NO WHERE....for about an hour, trying to find the Sprial Jetty. Though we mostly only saw fields and cows, we finally took a turn and stumbled right on it! It was actually pretty cool...and I'm glad we went.

On our way back to Provo we stopped at the new Brigham City Temple. It was SO BEAUTIFUL I just kept taking pictures. Actually, all of Brigham City was beautiful. I'd never really been there before, but while driving down the beautifully colored main street, Eric and I both agreed we wouldn't mind living in a quaint town like this.

Now we're back in Provo getting ready to cook a big dinner and get acquainted with our homework. Though it was only a mini trip there and back, it was incredible. Exactly what we needed. We might have to make time for a few more "mini vacations" in the future!