Field trip for me

Last week I took a trip to Richmond Virginia to attend accreditation training for work.  My coworker and I were there for 3 nights.  I was slightly excited for a number of reasons like getting to fly, going way east, oh and of course the training :).   I did get to travel with a coworker who I like, so that was nice having someone along.  I would have been fine by myself  since I am not one of those people that always have to be around others.  I was really nervous about the airport experience having to go through security and having to switch planes to get where we were going.  Lucky my travel buddy has flown a lot more that me so that was comforting.  I really do enjoy flying, after all I got to look at this on our way from Tulsa to Dallas.  We were somewhere over Texas by time I took this, I think.  Yay for 6am flights!

 

Our training was really good.  The accreditation standards don't completely look Greek to me anymore.  The class was actually full with 80-90 people, this was just during a break.

 

Proof I was there and not just running around having fun at the company's expense.

We did get to see a little sightseeing after we got out of training for the day.  This was the state capital building.  They were doing some type of renovation on the other side where the stairs and giant columns were.  It reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial.

 

 

 

We took a walk down and saw the James river and through the nearby canals.  Of course their little boat rides were closed. 

 

These cobble stones were brought over from England by boat and just dropped off many many years ago to pave the streets.

 

There is some awesome architecture there too.  Lots of history.

 

 

We laughed a lot about this sign.  We were thinking it was a silly way to say "You are downtown" or "You're downtown" but it was actually University of Richmond Downtown. 

 

 

Oh man did we eat some good food too...

 

Here I had a glass of Moscato, oysters (for the first time which were so freaking good), rabbit with knefla, brussel sprouts and grapes or cherries.  I can't remember the fruit but it was awesome.

 Hummus and pita bread along with veggies and sun dried kalamata olives for lunch one day at our hotels restaurant. 

Our last night we went to a place called The Hard Shell.  Mahi mahi with baby spinach and mango salsa.  Mmmm.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the alone time in my hotel room.  King size bed that I got to sleep in the middle of, down comforter and pillows that swallowed me up (I still prefer my tempurpedic memory foam pillow), watching whatever the heck I wanted to on TV while wearing my flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks...yeah it was awesome.  Thank goodness for Face time so I could still see my little family back home.  I was watching "This is 40", which is something I have been wanting to see.

 

 

Of course I had to bring a few things back with me.  I brought Jimmy a Property of Richmond VA tee and Kiera a tye-dye bear wearing a "Virginia" shirt which she has named Sprinkles.  I got this mug for mah-self.

 

On our way home our flight to Chicago was delayed an hour because of weather and when we got there at 1:30pm all Tulsa flights had been cancelled.  The flight we did get on was for 6pm.  This was my first time to Chicago and really wanted to sight see but didn't get to.  We did walk the entire airport to kill some time which was really easy to navigate, unlike Dallas.  That is why it only took us 30 minutes to walk 5 concourses. We will definitely have to take a little vacay up there some time.  I am still trying to figure out what giant fish I could see in Lake Michigan from the air too.

 

I of course had to be a complete dork and eat Chicago style pizza in Chicago.  I am positive it would have been 50times better from an actual pizza place and not a little shop in the food court but it was still really good. 

I have now decided that my souvenir will be coffee mugs.  I have seen these Starbucks "You are here" mugs in the past and when I saw them at the airport I had to get one.  Since I brought home two mug Jimmy told me I had to get rid of 2 (which is what I do with everything anyway).  I got rid of 9!  One was just a random mug and the other 8 were part of our dish set that I NEVER use.  Now I have just 4 coffee mugs and all are special to me!