Our Wknd Plans

I can’t believe it’s Friday already, this week flew by.  Today is casual “Blue and Grey” day at work (company colors) in honor of Engineer’s Week.  This is a rarity, since our usual dress code is business casual and we get approval to wear jeans maybe five times a year.

Tonight Ben and I have a date night planned that I’m uber excited for; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for On the Mediterranean!  Visiting CSO has been on our "list" of things to do/try in the city since mid 2009. Travelzoo had reduced rate tickets, $29 instead of $69, so Ben bought us a pair of tickets and decided to call it date night since he’s going to be wearing a suite.  He’s so cute, he looked up what the proper dress code is (it's apparently a common question).  Since it’s Restaurant Week here in Chicago (prixe-fix dinners for either $33 or $44 per person which includes app, entrée and dessert at restaurants that are usually more expensive), we decided to do a nice dinner too.  Although Ben’s original suggestion was to go to Noodles and Co. (I veto’ed this right away.  If we’re dressed up we’re NOT going to a fast food joint for dinner.

Tomorrow, I was originally planning on going to Indianapolis to visit one of my best friends but our plans kind of flunked out, so now I have the rest of the weekend to relax.  I have two delicious recipes that I made this week, both desserts, that I will be posting.  I also have a book review to post.  Ben and I have been on a kick of trying to read books based in the cities of our trip (Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Reading (UK) and London).  My first read, which is what I need to post the review on, is Shadow of the Wind.  I'm currently about 3/4 way through with Anne Frank's Diary (since we're going to visit the Secret Annexe...agh, I cannot wait!!).  Ben has never read it, I find that crazy! I thought it was one of those books that everybody has read, but I guess not!

Otherwise, I’m hoping to do a bit more planning for our Europe trip because it’s coming fast! (End of March).  Our one-way flight from Paris to Barcelona, which I booked a few weeks ago, changed times this week to four hours later, which is so NOT cool.  If I try to change our flight online to another time, the airline wants to charge me ~$100.  Hells no!  I have to Skype-call them this weekend (to avoid paying ~$1/min if I call from my cell phone) to try to work this out.  Otherwise, my backup plan is to try to call our credit card company and have the charge removed.  There’s always something to be done, I swear.