scott
This is Scott, my right-hand man.
7.31.2010
7.27.2010
7.26.2010
the weekend
saturday was scheduled to be my gaby day. she and her stepmom planned to drive down from Milwaukee and meet me for a day of Chicago galavants. while waiting for them I went to the end of Fullerton by the waterfront and tried to find the green market - I couldn't seem to find it. and as someone who really digs the farmers market world, I was pretty disappointed.
this weekend was the "taste of Lincoln ave" street fair so I rolled over there, expecting to be well entertain if not
only for a little bit. $7! no way!
during all this I had learned from gaby that I had a bit if time before they would arrive. this meant I had enough time to go an al anon meeting on the other side of the neighborhood. the ride there was great and the people were even greater. there were 28 people there, I believe, and it was a relaxed group. we collectively made enough time for everyone to share if they wanted to. the woman who sat next to me was carrying a bike helmet so we inevitably chatted up until the meeting started. afterwards, we talked more about bike riding. I learned that she isn't consistent with her cycling so I advocated, naturally, and showed her my Chicago bike map. recognizing that I'm an awesome person she started to tell me about cool things to see and do before I leave the city.
when gaby and her stepmother, melody, finally arrived after a thousand hours stuck in traffic, i got them
out of their car and onto the lake shore drive pathway. gaby and I indulged our feet in some cool relief in lake Michigan and shortly after remarking that no one else was in the lake we were told by the lifeguard that the lake was off limits for the time being because the sewer lines had overflowed due to the rainstorm the night before. yuck!
we walked down and through armitage and stopped for dinner at twisted lizard: fajitas and mango margaritas!
i had them drop me off at Clark and Belmont and walked home on incredibly tired feet. I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to go back to the hostel right away or not but those feet were screaming. I also decided to not try to hit up the 1am free improv show at the second city because lululemon was offering a free yoga class at 10am.
Sunday morning came and went and so did my alarm. I slept until 11, though i do remember it going off at 9 i mostly remember my split second decision to forego the yoga class. I'm sort of disappointed about that now but, oh well!
i have been trying to catch the tour de France as much as possible. the ultimate win would be finding it on at a public establishment where I could watch it with people who care instead of obnoxious hostellians. i read that handlebar, a bike themed eating establishment, might be showing it. they weren't, but it was a cool place to sit and have a cup of coffee. given that it was the last stage, i continued my hunt. i asked the guys next to me for a recommendation and they said to try smallbar. I did, they weren't. but I'm glad I went to both those places because the process gave me a great tour of wicker park - it's like the mission in sf but even more gentrified. (!)
with little else to do, i tried to go to the goose island brewery. their ipa isn't amazing but its the only local one I've found. turns out they don't have a brewpub. I wish I had known that before I'd rode in several circles, including goose island itself, trying to find the place.
with a few more hours yet to kill until the hostel BBQ, I found a spot on the grass near the harbor with access
to an outlet. charged my phone and read the latest copy of Momentum magazine that's been getting torn up in my bag. in there I read about the neighborhood of Hyde Park here in Chcago. i rode down there with my mom on the phone, more or less [our call kept getting disconnected!], and saw some of what there was to see.
feeling officially wiped, I begrudgingly rode my sorry self back to the hostel with daydreams of hotdogs, relish, and warm buns.
you can imagine my frustration when I saw that the BBQ was still under its tarp. I peeled myself off of Scott and tried to figure out what was causing the delay in cooktime-awesome-free-food wonder. before I could make a fool of myself by inquiring to the staff, I saw the original advertisement: Friday and saturday evenings. not Saturday and Sunday evening! RAWR!
after a pathetic dinner consisting almost entirely of flax seed chips and beer and a cat nap, I took Scott back out. we were headed to Simons Tavern for a night of free music recommended to me by the nice woman I met at that wonderful al anon meeting the day before.
the bar was one of those rectangular establishments which is fine except for when the place is packed full of people. a crowd in that shape makes it difficult and awkward to wander through much less to scope out a good spot to plant yrself. i landed at the end of the bar, fully on the opposite side of the room from the musicians. I had another depressing conversation with yet another bartender who didn't know the difference between an ipa and a pale ale.
i sat and read up on the tour. this is my first year somewhat following the progress of the riders. I learned that while contador isn't exactly an exceptional time trialist, schleck is even less so. I can't decide which of those two annoys me more...
7.24.2010
7.23.2010
Friday
today was a cultural day! the culture of lazy. not really, but wow I didn't get up until nearly 1pm - I haven't slept in that late since the summers of high school.
I had spent a minute at about 9.20am collecting some of the desirable free breakfast components and went back to bed. seriously, I love free food.
By 2pm, I left the hostel to go straight to the Federal Reserve of Chicago. it was great - history, culture, and some education. I now feel like I could carry a short conversation on the economy.
it took me about 45 minutes to an hour to get to Garfield park and its conservatory. this is where my laziness is realized - I never researched their hours, which it turns out are 10a-5p - I read this at about 5.08pm. rawr! I almost hung around, sunbathed, and toured the perimeter of the grounds until I was reminded that I was in a somewhat seedy neighborhood. I was even hollered at on my way back east, though I'm pretty sure it had everything to do with the fact that Scott and I could accelerate out of the intersection faster than their ghetto-fabulous-mobiles.
I safely arrived at Willis tower, formerly known as sears tower. as recently as last year their most prominent tenant negotiated a stipulation in their contract that the building be renamed Willis, so I learned on my tour. when I did the empire state building with Annette in '07 we learned that the best time of day to pay for the view from a tall building is about an hour before dusk. you take it all in while it's light out, peruse the gift shop, and then enjoy the evening view. not to mention the power of the sunset from 1,000 feet (more or less) in the air! we also learned that the audio tours are worth it, even though I can tell you it was better in new York.
sensing that it was time for dinner, I saw that a location of Lou Malnati's pizza was on my way to The Second City. this was the recommendation that came from the nice gal at the Clarke House the other day. while I was
inside enjoying my incredibly delicious pizza it began to rain. I could hear it - I was about to experience rain in the Midwest.
I was surprised, relieved, horrified, and confused to experience that while it was raining buckets, lightening and thundering, the temperature was still in the high 70s. after my initial panic dissipated I released Scott and we made our way to the second city. it was wet, and the cabs were clearly crazier, a lot like in sf, but I wasn't freezing. I didn't curse at every yellow and red light because that would mean I would lose the bit of body temperature I had stored between my bag and I. it was incredibly odd to cruise around as though everything were normal except my clothes were somehow heavier and the bumps
in the road were, for some reason, more difficult to assess.
on Huron between Dearborn and wells I chatted with a nice guy about the weather. he told me that not only was this typical but that it would surely get worse. on wells I chatted with a different guy about the weather but this time we travelled long enough in the same direction or us to compare Chicago with sf. Chicago weather is worse, just in case anyone was wondering. I turned off at the second city, and even though I had researched it and seemed to remember that the shows aren't cheap, I balked at the "$27" in the window. so I went around the corner to the recommended old town ale house. it had a cool interior and everyone in there seemed nice, but there wasn't much to do besides twiddle my thumbs, which I didn't, of course, I twiddled my iPhone. but still! as soon as the cubs game was
over they flicked off the tv - as though there couldn't possibly be anything else worth watching!
again, I was alarmed when I went outside. but by the time I got back to my man Scott I was feelin' the vibe again. the rest of the vibe home was
uneventful - except for the lightening and huge puddles of course. I arrived at the hostel drenched and feeling appropriately accomplished.
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