Monday, August 6, 2012

Weekend Trip to Albuquerque!

So this weekend, Jonathan and I took a last minute trip to Albuquerque.  He had a flight voucher that we cashed in for super cheap flights on Southwest.  It was one of the greatest weekend we have had in a while!  We left at 8:30 Saturday morning and because of the time change, got there at 8:30 Saturday morning!


This was Saturday:
We woke up ridiculously early, flew to Albuquerque and picked up the car.  Then the awesome began.  We went to Frontier Restaurant for their famous sweet rolls, which were amazing and tasted like Texas Roadhouse's rolls with the cinnamon butter.  They were pretty awesome.  After breakfast, we hit up the Albuquerque Biological Park, specifically, the zoo.  I was not sure what to expect, but I LOVE zoos, so I was willing to give it a try.  Let me tell you what, if you like zoos, you need to see go to the Albuquerque zoo.  (Big bonus, it's only $12 for an all day pass for the ENTIRE biological park, which includes the zoo, aquarium, and botanical gardens.)  First off, the zoo is much bigger than you might expect it to be, with a ton of animals!  My personal favorite animals are orangutans and there were 5 orangutans at this zoo.  One of them was a baby, named Reese, born in 2008.  The zoo also has these great signs that tell you if there is a Zoo Baby in that exhibit, with the animal's name and birthday.  There is also an orangutan, Tonka, who everyone called Chewy, because he totally looks like Chewbacca (the link is a picture, I recommend looking at it).  We saw a ton of different animals, but the orangutans were far and away my favorite. 

I also got to feed a giraffe!  It was incredible, but went very quickly, so we couldn't get pictures of it, but Jonathan got one of the giraffe's head near mine.  I fed the lorikeets too, specifically one named Velcro.  He drank some of the nectar and promptly climbed up my arm and sat on my shoulder.  He tried to eat my earrings and also licked nectar onto my ears.  Apparently, they thank you by sharing the nectar, AKA, rubbing it on you.  It tickled so much when he licked my ears, I couldn't stop laughing.  When he started to pull on my earrings, I tried to stop him and he decided to bite my finger instead!  That beak hurts!!!  I had little dipples on my finger from where he bit me twice.  The little booger.  I actually fed the lorikeets before I fed the giraffe, but the giraffe was more notable because I have fed lorikeets before when we were at the San Antonio Zoo.

After the zoo, we went to Pita Pit because we both miss it a lot and have to have it everytime we see one.  After lunch, we went to a great brewery called La Cumbre.  They sell these 4oz. glasses for a buck each, so Jonathan tried 4 different kinds.  Let's see if I can remember which ones...Jefe's Hefe, Miles from Cologne, No, You're a Dort!, and Malpais Stout.  I actually ended up drinking half the No, You're a Dort! because it was delicious.  The Malpais Stout was so dark you couldn't see through it at all, not even when Jonathan tried to see if his phone would show up through it.  He said it was good, and it has won awards, but not my cup of tea (or beer).

We went back and checked into the hotel after the brewery.  We stayed at Hotel Parq Central and oh my goodness, it is GORGEOUS.  We wandered around to check it out, it was really neat looking.  Plus we discovered The Apothecary Lounge, which is a rooftop bar on top of the hotel.  It's part indoor, part outdoor with a ton of seating, both tables and chairs and wicker couches.  There were also these three huge saucer chairs that could seat a family of four easily, complete with cushions and pillows.  We decided that we would definitely go back there later in the evening. 

During our wandering, we also found the hot tub at the hotel, which is open 24 hours!  We decided that we should end our evening there after the Apothecary Lounge, but we did not bring our bathing suits.  So we decided to go buy some.  Target was far away, but we had passed a K-Mart earlier that day and I figured I would be able to find just a plain, solid color suit for cheap.  Boy was I wrong.  The only suits they had were terrifying and looked like a pattern that a cheap hooker might have on her fake nails.  Awful.  Needless to say, we decided to hit up Target even though it was farther.  On the way there, we saw an Old Navy, so stopped in there.  Great decision, all the women's suits were on super sale for $8 a piece.  So $16 later, I have a suit that will not only work for the hot tub, but that I will wear again!  By that point we were hungry so...

For dinner, we went to The Standard Diner.  We shared an onion tumbleweed that is served with garlic aioli; yum.  Jonathan had the fish tacos, made with swordfish, and served with Israeli couscous.  I went in knowing that I was going to have the Bourbon Butter Burger because it was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  It is a burger served with a huge (I'm talking as thick as the burger itself) slab of bourbon maple butter compound on it.  I went against my gut, which I should never, ever do when it comes to food, and ordered the burger even after looking over the menu.  Next time, I will definitely be trying the Osee's Tomato soup served with a garlic crostini, mozzarella, and basil oil, it is a customer favorite and sounds incredible.  For dessert, I ordered a dark chocolate truffle, which I ate later in the night.  Holy crap, it was everything you could ever want in a truffle.  Rich, dark, yummy.  Jonathan ordered a cream puff.  We expected it to be like a normal sized cream puff, but it was gigantic and the top of the pastry was dipped in chocolate.  It was pretty darn good too, but we could not finish it. 

We went back to the hotel after dinner and decided that we would go up to the roof for a while.  When we were up there earlier in the day it was pretty much vacant, so we didn't think that it would be super busy and decided to take our books up there and read in one of the aforementioned huge saucer chairs.  Well, we were wrong because it turns into a hot spot for both guests and locals around dinner time!  We scored some seats on a couch where we could watch the sunset and kept our attention on the great chairs.  There was a huge thunderstorm rolling in from the west, which made for an incredible sunset.  The clouds glowed orange and the lightening flashed, it was awesome.  It also cooled off considerably, so it was very pleasant.  I don't have a picture of the sunset, but I have a picture that shows off the storm pretty well:
I had a glass of wine and Jonathan tried a couple of cocktails.  He said the Pimm's Cup was really good and we will be making them at home.  His second drink, the Aviation Cocktail, was totally a girly drink and our obnoxious waitress told him he would "totally love it, darling" (she was super annoying and called him darling all night).  According to him, it was awesome if you enjoy drinking lemon Pledge.  Eventually, the storm caught up with us and it started to rain.  The roof cleared off pretty quickly and we decided that it would be a great time to try out the hot tub.  Of course, by the time we got down there, it wasn't raining anymore, but it was still very enjoyable.

Finally, we went to sleep and Saturday was over.  Now, onto Sunday!

Sunday did not start out so hot.  We wanted to go see the hot air balloons since we were in Albuquerque and that is pretty much exactly what they are known for.  We got up at 5:30AM to go out and see the balloons.  We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate and went out.  We drove around, waited, drove around, waited.  And guess what, no balloons.  We still don't know if we were in the wrong spot or if there just weren't any balloons going up that morning, but regardless, we didn't see any.  I was pretty frustrated, so we decided that since we were awake, we should go watch the sunrise from the top of the hotel.  So we drive back to the hotel, keeping an eye on the mountain behind us where the sun would make its appearance and manage to make it to the hotel before it comes up.  We go up to the roof of the hotel and...a building is COMPLETELY blocking the stupid mountain and sunrise.  I almost lost it; definitely not my best moment of the weekend.  We went back to the room and I decided that I would go back to sleep for a little bit and then restart the day and forget about the ridiculous start that had already taken place. 

When I woke up about an hour later, we bummed around for a while watching TV, then headed down to breakfast to see what was offered.  The hotel includes a complimentary breakfast, but we weren't sure if we wanted to have that or go back to Frontier Restaurant since their menu was huge and we were too overwhelmed to look it over on Saturday morning.  When we got down to breakfast at the hotel, we were very impressed!  There was quiche, fancy pastries, yogurt, cereal, toast, fruit salad, etc.  It was pretty nice, so we stayed there and ate some breakfast!

After breakfast, we got all showered and headed over to the aquarium, which we did not make it to on Saturday.  The aquarium was pretty awesome and we saw some amazing creatures.  Of course, the jellys are my favorite.  They had moon jellys which are always a fan favorite.  Lots of really neat fish, stingrays, mantas, and sharks.  There was a shark that kept swimming by with its mouth open and I was able to see his teeth up close, they were crazy!  We also saw these lobsters that were massive and a puffer fish the size of my head. 

We walked through the botanical gardens after the aquarium.  It was pretty cool and had a big open space in the middle of it where you could have picnics or just relax.  There was also a spot set up where people could get married, it was gorgeous.  We saw a lot of beautiful flowers and scenery, there were ponds and waterfalls, but Jonathan has those pictures.  This was one of my favorite flowers that we saw.

We stopped for lunch at JC's New York Pizza Department.  It was pretty tasty.  We both had a slice, side salad, and a drink.  No pictures of that or much more to say.  It reminded me a lot of Boiler Market at Purdue.

After lunch, we went back to the zoo because they had a new amphibian exhibit that opened on Sunday, so obviously we couldn't see it Saturday.  I made a deal with Jonathan that we could go through that as long as I could go see the orangutans again.  The amphibian exhibit was pretty awesome.  We saw some frogs that were smaller than my pinkie fingernail.  They were itty bitty.  There was also a bullfrog that I couldn't see, but when I was looking for it, the moss started moving, so I'm assuming it was under there.  It was pretty crazy, but also pretty cool.  There were also these little tree frogs that were such a bright green that they looked like chewed gum. 

When we went to see the orangutans, Reese was being much more active than the day before.  She was hilarious to watch and was carrying a piece of a fern around like a security blanket.  She swung all over the habitat and then would stop to chew on it and realize she had dropped it while she settled in.  You could just tell that she was exasperated that it was on the ground again.  At one point, she took the plant and swung up to where a giant plastic trash bin was suspended.  She threaded the plant through hole where the chain was.  She slowly tested her weight on it to see if it would hold.  Of course, as soon as she thought it was good and that it would hold her, she put all of her weight on it and fell to the ground.  She played it off really well though and took both pieces and hopped back up to the top of the tree she was in before.  Reese also squatted over the edge of that hanging bin and peed, which I had never seen before.  Then she kinda stood on her head and sniffed it...it was really weird, but hilarious. 
We were super hot after the zoo, so we went to the Flying Star Cafe, which is known for their desserts.  We both got the mango iced tea that they brew in-house and it was awesome.  Jonathan had Key lime pie that he said was very good and I got the Raspberry Blackout Cake.  I took a picture, but not until I had already started eating it.  Sorry.  It was awesome.  And the picture shows the colors kind of off because those two layers look pink when they are actually brown.  It was layers of dark chocolate cake and chocolate mousse topped with raspberry preserves.  It was amazing with just the right amount of raspberry.  The whole venue was really cool.  And massive.  There were study rooms where college groups could meet for projects and alcoves with comfortable seating.

We were still worn out and didn't really want to do anything else, so we found a Barnes and Noble to hang out in until it was time to go to the airport.  We stopped at Pita Pit on the way to the airport so I could grab one last pita before we left the wonderful land of pitas.  We dropped off the rental car and got to the airport a full two hours early and literally walked up, showed our IDs, walked through security, didn't even have to way wait behind a single person, and sat.  We got there early because it is a larger airport and figured that it would be better to get there early.  Two hours was entirely too early though.  Oh well, we got there in plenty of time and got back home in one piece.

All in all, it was a great weekend and felt like much longer than two days.  It's amazing how finding a cheap flight can make two days feel like a real vacation.  It's just nuts.  Completely pistachios.

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