The Windy City

Ch'nel tries her hand at blogging! Since I am incredibly possessive over my blogs I have included my own commentary in italics. I'll deal with the reprecussions during our 9 hour drive tomorrow. She might beat me, I may be a judger but she's a hitter.  

Also please note that there is an additional new blog entry below this one. Please read that one first.

Here goes my first ever blog: 

I slept great my first night in the Windy City. Marianna tells me that at one point in the night I opened my eyes, reached my hand over in front of her face and asked, “What material is this glove made of?” The best answer she could come up was “Um, I don’t know”, to which I replied, “Ok” and slipped back into my real-bed-induced coma. I apologize to anyone who has ever run into me while I was sleepwalking...Ch'nel's midnight conversation with me was really creepy. 

We got up and out fairly quickly, excited as ever to see Chi-town first hand. I was a little bit too excited because I got on the hotel shuttle wearing flip-flops with socks. Don’t worry, we turned back. I'm partially responsible. I stood in the hotel lobby yelling "COME ON! COME ON! WE. GOTTA. GO!" at her while she tried to make her coffee. She did make it all the way to the lobby without wearing shoes. A semi-creepy but helpful CTA worker gave us directions to a supermarket where we could purchase a 24 hour pass for the train. Poor guy, he asked us where we wanted to go and I shrugged and said "dunno...the city?". I hate hate hate it when people do that to me about New York but I also hate sharing my plans with other people. He did not seem pleased with my answer. Sweet! Before we knew it we were on the blue line heading downtown, past the Addison street station. If Nanny could read, she’d get a shout out right here. Let's still give her a shout out! Hey Nanny!

Our first stop was Millenium Park, where we checked out the amphitheater and bp bridge designed by Frank Gehry, and took pictures of Cloud Gate, the giant reflective bean. We sauntered through the gardens and strolled down the pier. We walked right past the Chicago theater and into a Borders. Free wi-fi (that actually works) is hard to come by, so we grabbed some caffeine and looked up the locations of some other Chicago must-sees.  

Marianna led us right to the front doors of the Sears tower, only it said Willis Tower in huge black letters. Apparently it had a recent name change. Its cool, we know someone who just changed her name to Mrs. Scarlett out of nowhere. You just accept these things. The lady behind us could not. Basically she was whining because the people of Chicago do not know who this Willis is. And the name sounds British. Now Sears – that’s a regular American household word. They had a catalog! We wished out loud that we would not have to ride the elevator with this woman. We did. Yep, all 103 floors to the top.  

Once we stepped out of the elevator doors, however, we forgot all about the whiny lady. From the windows we could see all of Chicago – we pointed out the mini-sized Millenium Park and the bushy area we decided was Wrigley field. We turned the corner to see the Skydeck ledges… glass boxes that hung from the side of the tower at over 1300 feet in the air. Marianna used her “I’ll hold your bag” line, but eventually found the guts to step out into the sky with me. Despite our trembling hands, we managed to get photo proof of us risking our lives. We had already managed to get out of Gary, IN alive so we were feeling pretty gutsy. 

Extreme elevation made us realize we were starving, so we made our descent and got ourselves a deep dish pizza across the street. We asked our waiter how to get to the lakefront beach. He explained that we needed to take a train, and then walk about 5 to 10 minutes to the shore. This was “the biggest bitch,” he said in his thick Italian accent. No problem, we don’t mind walking, sir. “I mean, the biggest beach, I’m sorry.”  

We made it to the Lake Michigan beach in no time where we saw volleyball players making the most of the awesome weather. I envied their tans. I’m being honest here. We had to get out of there fast. 

Back in the city we met up with Marianna’s high school friend Liz, who took us down the magnificent mile. Liz rattled off the names and brief histories of buildings and stores and water towers but claimed she didn’t know what she was talking about. She knew what she was doing when she brought us into the Ghirardelli store for ice cream, that’s for sure. Thank you, Liz.  

At last, it was time for a visit with long lost friend AP before calling it a night. Andrew told us to meet him on Harrison street and we, of course, were fixin to roll. Andrew treated us to drinks and appetizers at a little restaurant/bar where he knew everyone. We updated him on Princeton and he filled us in on his recent academic and cycling endeavors. You’ll be pleased to hear that he just about runs Chicago. Look out Mayor Daley, AP is the people’s choice.  

Our day went fantastically, and we loved our first visit to the Windy City. We got back to the hotel and immediately went into a deep sleep, dreaming of all the other sweet days that lie ahead. Excellent job, Ch'nel! I think I can keep you on as co-blogger.