*no realistic, sane person goes around chicago without protection.* - saul bellow

the quote above holds a bit of meaning for h and i. we had a bit of a stalker issue our first night. other than that, the people of chicago were wonderful. especially those who made the coffee i ran on.

chicago trip may 24th-29th
here goes....

i left here saturday at like 5pm, drove out to h's to check on the dogs one last time, hung out with her mum and left the area at about 6pm. i drove to harselle to pick h up at a wedding and the trip started.



saturday: this was probably my favorite part of the drive. i was excited to finally be in chicago after the over night drive. it might actually tie with the early morning stop at a diner in lafayette, in. homemade biscuits and honey. mmmmmm.

we got in to tasha and phil's, talked to phil, showered, found the train, did some speed walking and then did our first presentation of the trip. the rest of our day was mostly traveling on the train, taking a nap, catching up at the au reunion and searching for coffee. mmmmm. dunkin's.



monday: buckingham fountain. we wandered between sessions before we presented. you can see me entranced with the wind blowing the fountain spew. i was also very concerned i would get misted on. the fountain was giant.



cloud gate. also known as 'the bean'. this was very cool and located in millennium park. there is art scattered around the city. also very cool.



this was the longest day of walking. we did a poster presentation session, h got into verbal fisticuffs with a woman during the last session and then we wandered what seemed like the entire city. all while carrying the dang poster tube. we were completely over it by about 7pm when we were waiting for the train out to tasha's. we ended up not going back in for the social that night. too tired. though i really wanted to share the story of h and the woman because no one believes me she's got some feist.



we were well acquainted with chicago transit. this train was in the theater district. half way through the long walking day.



sears tower. we watched a video and all. they had to justify the $13 they make you pay to ride in the elevator and look out the windows. at this point i was carrying my bag, the poster tube and a bag of garrett's popcorn. we looked like tourists. mostly because we looked lost a lot and h would say 'crap' or something like it every time we would walk in the wrong direction. i also got the tube stuck in a revolving door.



tuesday: chinatown. the only place we went other than to the conference. h wanted a nap and we ended up staying in for the afternoon and then eating at a mandarin & cantonese restaurant for dinner. we also proved our coolness by taking the train to a grocer's.



wednesday: we took the train to the state street shopping and magnificent mile on michigan ave. we did some window shopping. later we took the bus to navy pier. there was lots of water, boats, food and games. there were also pirates inside doing a show. it was kind of entertaining until they said they were going into the audience to get people to participate. that was our queue to leave. it was similar to santa monica pier.



cubs! i'm not so much a cubs fan but we went to the game. it was flipping cold out. like 40°. we ate some good ballpark food and cheered them on. they won in the 10th inning. i even sang along. and clapped. good baseball is good baseball.



thursday: view of the city from lincoln park zoo. it's kind of cool to have something like that in the middle of the city. lots of class trips that day. nannies with strollers. animals laying out in the sun.

after the zoo we were involved in the following: picking up more popcorn at garrett's and lunch in greektown, meeting up with tasha to say goodbye and driving out to new carlisle, ohio. if you're in chicago go to greektown.

the rest of the trip was spent in ohio. we were there until sunday morning spending time with the family. friday mum, h and i drove to jungle jim's and went to dinner at some asian buffet with the parents, richie and rachael. saturday we went to the store for wedding stuff and bathing suits, made a variety of empanadas including guava with cream cheese and went to see 'sex and the city' with mum and rachael. i think it gave h some perspective on my family visits.

next time i'll write about today's trip to selma.
*jp