Thirtysomething

I'm Moving to Chicago!

Okay, so I'm not really moving to Chicago. But I'd like to, and in fact there are only two drawbacks to moving there as far as I can tell: wickedly cold winters and sales tax on clothing. Bummer.

I love, love, LOVE Chicago. Here's a breakdown of my trip in case you're really, really bored.

Day 1:
Land in Chicago on time and check into our hotel early--about 11 a.m. We go to check out the Oak Street beach. Even though it's just a lake beach, it's pretty expansive. The water is a beautiful color. Look though I might, I commented to Ron that I could not find a single homeless person sleeping on the beach. We had lunch at the "beachfront" cafe where I had a Chicago hot dog, a decision that would haunt me, digestively speaking, for the next day. Ron went to go study some more and I explored the Magnificent Mile. I found a pair of Paper Denim & Cloth jeans that I loved in Filene's basement. They fit like a glove and I finally understood why people say that the right jeans are all about the ass. Unfortunately, they only had one pair in my size and it had a defective button. So I didn't get those jeans. I found alternatives in the Levi's store but I didn't rush to buy them.

Ron and I met up for a nice dinner at Rosebud on Rush. The bottle of wine we had was delish, although most likely ill-advised the night before a major exam. Ron headed back to the hotel to read, I wandered through the streets again and found tons of bars and restaurants to try on the Gold Coast.

Day 2:
Ron went off to exam-land, and since it was overcast, I scratched my plan to head to the beach and instead planned a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago is very walk-able, which is great for people like me who walk just about everywhere. It only took about 10 minutes to get to the museum from the hotel. I got to see a lot of great paintings including American Gothic, Nighthawks, Greyed Rainbow (which used to hang on my bedroom wall in high school), and A Sunday on La Grand Jatte. I am a fickle museum guest. While some could probably remain in just one wing of a museum for hours on end, I usually breeze through a whole musuem in a couple of hours. It's not that I'm not observant. I approach museums much in the way I do books. I only glance at the areas that somewhat bore me and pay closer attention to the sections that I find interesting. Sort of a speedreading for museums I suppose.

I also tooled around Millenium Park and lamented that we don't have a park quite so cool or accessible in Philadelphia. Lots of gardens, fountains and a theatre. I loved the huge, mirrored lima bean and I want one for my house. Again, I marvelled that there was nary a homeless person sleeping in the park or bathing in the fountains. Strange, I thought.

I did a little more window shopping at Marshal Field's, which is freaking huge by the way. Ron and I went for dinner at Boston Blackie's that night. Their onion rings are great and they still frost their beer mugs.

Day 3:
Ron left early in the morning for day 2 of the exam and I headed to the beach for a bit. It was so strange to look up from the sand and see the city skyline looming. I later told Ron that I much preferred it to sitting out in Rittenhouse. He replied that the beach wasn't all that big and I retorted that I could at least lay out on this beach without crazy men fondling themselves.

Then I spent a couple of hours trying on every pair of jeans at Levi. During one of Ron's breaks, we checked out of our first hotel, which his work was paying for and into our chain of choice: Marriott. I walked to Navy Pier to scope out the scene there. I love that the city has beaches and a boardwalk and the two aren't necessarily near each other. Seriously, Chicago has a lot to offer.

Ron, who was mentally drained at this point, was just very excited that his exam was over and we celebrated by having deep dish pizza at Gino's East. So filling, but so good. We got the Meaty Legend, which as you might imagine has about every variety of meat available on it. We proceeded to Jake Melnick's for beer and the Eagles game. All in all, it was Ron's dream night out: pizza, beer and football.

Day 4:
Boy, was this hectic. We got up relatively early, went to breakfast at the Original Pancake House in the Gold Coast neighborhood. Great eggs benedict, which came with potato pancakes. One of my favorite things on earth are potato pancakes. There was a wait for tables inside so we opted to eat outside which was a mistake. Know what a pancake house has a lot of? Syrup. Know what attracts? Bees. Regardless, breakfast was great, so filling we skipped lunch and we didn't get stung so everything was a-okay. After we went to the observatory of the John Hancock Building, then we headed out on an architecture river tour. Did you know that Chicago is called the Windy City, not because of windy weather conditions but because a NY reporter wrote a scathing article in 1893 that Chicagoans were a bunch of "windbags", after discovering that they lied about exhibits and hotels being ready for the World's Fair that year? I didn't know that either. I also didn't know that some of the buildings were built with what looks like a giant onion on top--but was really a blimp docking station.

We headed back through Millenium Park so Ron could see it, and then we went to the Skydeck at the Sears Tower. That whole section of town must be a business district, because even though it was Saturday, all the restaurants and stores were closed. A little strange. We ended the day by going to Navy Pier. I dragged Ron on the ferris wheel, which gave me the delicious feeling of being 6 years old again and then we had dinner at Joe's Be-Bop Cafe while listening to some jazz. We watched fireworks over Lake Michigan and called it a day.

Day 5:
Our last day and we decided to have breakfast at Ed Debevic's a 50's diner where the wait staff is humorously rude to you. We did a little shopping on Michigan Ave, which does, by the way, have panhandlers. I hesitate to call them homeless because these are some of the best-dressed panhandlers I've ever seen. Mostly, they hold signs and hang their heads and Ron theorized that this is so that people from their jobs wouldn't recognize them. ANYWAY, I was sad to leave, sad that it was our last day. Sad that Philly isn't a bit more like Chicago.



So we're home and I enjoyed being away and with any luck I'll enjoy getting out of town again this weekend. Although I think I made a huge dent in seeing a lot of downtown Chicago, there's still a bunch I want to experience next time, including Hugo's Frog Bar, Second City, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (a jazz club where Al Capone used to hang out!), the Lincoln Park neighborhood, and the Redhead Piano Bar. Fortunately for me if not for him, Ron will have to take these exams every few years...and always in Chicago.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 8:24 AM