When good weekends go bad

[agt_spooky]

The hubby's birthday was on Friday so we were going to have a birthday weekend for him. Started off pretty good. He had birthday coupons at various places so he went to Starbucks for lunch and a coffee, which was basically free. After I got home from work I gave him his gifts - two Hercule Poirot DVD sets, which he loved. Then we went out to dinner at Red Lobster and pigged out on seafood. Yum! Had a wonderful waitress who put a candle in John's brownie and everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. Hee! She also brought me a bowl of chicken tortilla soup to go when she saw that I didn't eat the cream of potato because it tasted like the cream was spoiled. How nice!

We went to Panera afterwards for John's free birthday pastry. I was going to get something as well. John picked a blueberry muffin and I picked a cinnamon crunch scone, which they only had one of. So the young guy rings me up and goes to get the pastries only to discover the guy next to him had taken the cinnamon scone! That was totally not cool and the kid was pissed at his co-worker and so was I. I ended up having to get something else, but the kid felt so bad he told me to pick out something else for free. How nice! Part two!

Then everything went downhill after that, unfortunately. [sigh] On Saturday morning we got up and drove to the train station. We were going to go into Chicago to the French Market. We've seen this featured on various local TV news programs and also on the Food Network. John's been wanting to go there for a while. And we also found out they had started up their Christmas stuff, with local artisans displaying their arts and crafts. Plus it's actually located at the train station, downstairs, so no cab or bus fare required. Sounds great, right? Yeah, not so much.

The day should have been absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining and it was in the upper 50's. However the winds were constant between 20 - 30 mph. I kid you not. It was miserable trying to walk from the parking lot to the train station and then since the station is closed on the weekends we had to stand outside in the howling winds for a good 20 minutes before the train got there. I was windburned by the time we got on the train. Not a good start.

We finally make it to the city an hour later in a packed to the gills train and head downstairs. Now we were expecting this really large market, based on what we saw on TV. Yeah, not so much. It was 95% food stalls, one fresh produce place and one little shop. We had walked through the entire place in about 20 minutes. And the next train wasn't for two hours. [sigh] To say we were massively disappointed was an understatement. We had lunch at one of the French bistro places that turned out to be terrible and really expensive. Same goes for the coffee/hot chocolate and mini donuts we had for dessert. Awful, expensive, with horrible service. And these places had been featured on TV!!

But wait, it gets better. Since the Market was a bust we wanted to check out the Christmas stuff. Only guess what? NONE of the vendors showed up! All of the stalls were closed. To say we were pissed was another understatement. We still had over an hour to kill before the next train so we thought we'd walk down to the Chicago river. Yeah, we thought the winds were bad in the suburbs?? We walked outside and it took our breath away. We braved it for as long as we could, I snapped a pic or two and we had to head back we were so miserable.

Needless to say, by the time we got home that evening we were wiped out and just generally angry that it had been such a waste of time and especially money, for nothing.

We had planned to go out on Sunday but scrapped that idea and just stayed in yesterday, watching TV, reading, doing laundry. We'd had enough disappointment for one weekend!

Please tell me your weekend was better than mine!

Comments

[morganslady.livejournal.com]

With those winds I would have blown away!! Sorry the trip was a bust..

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

OMG, the winds were insane! I mean I know Chicago is the “windy city” but that was taking it a bit too far!

There’s nothing worse than expecting something to go well, that you’re going to have fun doing and it turns out completely opposite. :-(

[digitalwave]

I'm so sorry sweetie. I know how frustrating it is when you want something to be perfect, especially when it's part of a gift/celebration for someone you love.

*hugs*

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

There’s nothing worse than expecting something to go well, that you’re going to have fun doing and it turns out completely opposite. :-(

[tracys-dream.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Sorry to hear about your day.
I stayed inside while it rained outside.

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

There’s nothing worse than expecting something to go well, that you’re going to have fun doing and it turns out completely opposite. :-(

[donelbo.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that your weekend didn't went well.
But I'm glad everything almost worked out on Johns birthday! And PLEASE tell him "Happy belated birthday" from me!

Me weekend was great! Vampire Ball rocked big times! I have to watch LOST GIRL now, as the actors were awesome!!!! Will mail you tomorrow or so ;).

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

Yes, thankfully his actual birthday was quite nice. We should have stopped there! LOL! And John says thank you very much for the bday wishes!

I’m so glad you had a great time at Vampire Ball! I can’t wait to hear all about it. :-)

[maguie.livejournal.com]

oww sorry to hear about your husband birthday weekend,, but next time if you have another bad day like that (hoping it doesn't happen againg) I think you should go out on Sunday,, don't let the other bad days win,,

Well I didn't go out much,, I went to rent 3 movies,

Gatsby, btw I didn't like it,,
World war Z I liked it more or less, it was very different to the book, the book was really good!
and Beasts of the Southern Wild - sooooo boring ( I rented it cause the little girl that is 10 years old was nominated for best actrees in a leading role on the Oscars this year)

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

We really did want to go out on Sunday, but trust me when I say that when bad luck takes ahold of us it sticks around for awhile. We knew not to even attempt to leave the house! :-)

I’ve never seen any of the three movies you watched. Only World War Z kind of looked interesting. My boss read the book and said the same thing as you - completely different. Makes me wonder why they even called the movie that if it was a totally different story. Wow, a 10 year old nominated for best actress? That’s pretty impressive!

[faninohio.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I hate when things don't live up to our expectations. That's so disappointing!! I especially hate it when it's expensive to boot. What a bummer. Glad you were able to salvage part of the time though.

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

It’s so true. There’s nothing worse than believing you’re going to have a good time doing something and it turns the complete opposite. And yep, the money, too. Train tickets, food, etc. Here’s hoping I can make Hanukkah better for John than his birthday!