Sweet Home Chicago vs. Wanderlust

Today, a Monday, has already descended into the usual routine of work balanced with a healthy dose of escapism. I heard from a friend of mine on facebook (yeah, I know...) that I hadn't spoken to in quite some time. This friend is one of those people who works for a couple months and some random temp job, and then disappears for a year or more, somehow managing to travel the world on what little income he or she acquired in that brief stint of employment. Right now my friend is in the north of Laos, "hanging out a bit" before traveling through Vietnam and points beyond for the next "few months" - how nice. I know that I'd never be able to pull off the traveler lifestyle, but it's hard not to be just a little bit jealous reading those comments from my 8:30-4:30 desk home. This contact reminded me that a year ago today I was excitedly (and a bit nervously) getting ready to leave for a month of traveling in Peru. The wanderlust is strong in me today; shelving books about India, Bali, and Mozambique makes my mind wander even farther afield.
Back to reality now, and time to make dinner reservations. My best friend and, funny enough, my travel companion in Peru's boyfriend is leaving for a job in Hawaii, so Dan and I will be taking them out for dinner. We decided on taking him to a Polish place because, even though he's lived in Chicago for quite some time, he's never had Polish food - a fact I find quite shocking, and a little bit sad. It made me smile a bit when at the end of the phone conversation with the person at the restaurant, when I was asked for my last name the usual pause after saying 'Labovitch' wasn't met by a request for me to repeat myself. Usually at that point I need to spell my name a couple times, but for once the person on the other end repeated the name correctly in his thick Polish accent, said 'thank you,' and hung up... gotta love being surrounded by Eastern Europeans sometimes!