Chicago vistin'

This all brings me up to Chicago. And I've been lazy already and haven't provided anything at all about Chicago, where I've been for the last work week.

I got in around 7AM, got honked at by a cab, found parking I couldn't keep overnight, and crashed rather hard. After that sort of drive you always have strange dreams. Caitlin's radiator has something wrong with it, and makes noises as though it were fit to explode when it comes on. These found their way into several relatively nonsensical dreams I was having and made that nap a little less sound.

Got up around 4pm to move the car. Caitlin lives in a northern portion of Chicago which is pretty nice. Lots of nice old buildings, near one of the zoos, a few blocks from the lake, quite near bars/restaurants/etc. I was still pretty dazed, but did find parking, came back and zoned out for a little while until Caitlin came back.

She took me to a very nice little Indian restaurant around the corner. Hani's? I think. Many people I've spoken to say it's the best Indian food around. Chatted for a bit, and then I mentioned a bit of a desire for coffee. Not too many times I can't express a desire for coffee.

This took us across Clark street and into The Noble Tree. I'm a vacation regular there, now. It's a good shop in a restored turn-of-last-century building. Three floors, decent art, and good coffee. We sat there as I got my bearings, the lights brightening a little with each sip.

And that pretty well sums up Monday. Went back to the apartment, and slept until noon.

Tuesday I had to move the car again. I was still very nearly brain dead from the drive. It had started raining the night before, which is never a good sign in the winter in the midwest. It just means that the temperature is going to drop significantly later on and you end up with an ice storm. It just means that instead of nice, fluffy snow, you get sheet ice on everything because it was water for a little while.

By the time I went outside, the weather had gone for more of a sleet/driving snow look which was great if you weren't in it. Still, it made the city look pretty cool, something like a violent fog.

I went down to the lake, and it was kind of like being on the north sea or something. These breakers were coming in and smashing the shore, there were flows of ice on the surface, and all of the docks and pylons were coated in ice.

All kinds of crazy.

I called up another friend, Steve Hands, and he agreed to meet in Caitlin's neighborhood as my knowledge of how to get around here was and is quite limited. We went to an Irish bar next to the coffee shop where they tempted me with all you can eat fish and chips and it did not take that much before I'd decided it was all I could eat. Not that they were bad, but I'd never taken into account that I generally feel pretty damn full having had a regular portion thereof. So, didn't finish the refill. Alas. Need to train more for that sort of thing.

Then went to the coffee shop, chatted about the state of America, job hunting, apartment hunting, the governor of Illinois getting arrested in a predawn raid by the FBI for corruption. You know, stuff.

And went back to Caitlin's, chatted until an obscene hour for either of the two. I think he left around 1:30.

And I slept until 2 the next afternoon. And felt very lazy.

Steve and Caitlin had suggested going to the museum of science and industry for the day, and getting a bus pass to get down there. After wallowing in laziness for a bit and getting a coffee, I went on my way.

The buses in Chicago are pretty nice. The first driver I had was very pissed off. I haven't ridden the bus that much for a while, but I think it was the first time I'd seen a bus driver scream and flip off a motorist. Not that the motorist wasn't doing anything wrong, but it seemed a slight overreaction. And she had a lead foot. But the passengers are more what I'm referring to.

In Seattle, it seems that the bulk of the times I've taken the bus, there was someone talking loudly in the back or having a heated argument with another passenger. Often there's someone mentally ill who doesn't deal well with people and starts talking very loudly to people who aren't there while giving threatening looks at people. I've been on buses where the driver refuses to go unless someone, who really was being obnoxious, exited the bus.

I'm not sure entirely what causes the Seattle bus to be such an adventure, but the Chicago bus appears to be filled with relatively mild-mannered people who just happen to be on their way somewhere on the bus. I would describe it as pleasant.

Anyway, the museum is clear across town. You pass through downtown, and then go further, ending up on Lake Shore Drive (which can be shortened to LSD and often is) until you get near the University of Chicago. An area known as Hyde Park. The museum, for anyone who thinks of going, generally closes around 4PM. I got there around 5:30 and felt extra lazy. But it was cool. I got back on the bus and met Caitlin downtown.

While I was waiting for her, I got accosted by a bum. He spoke in an English accent and introduced himself as "The Ugliest Toad that did ever Live Underground". He gave quite a speech. I gave him two bucks.

Parts of downtown Chicago are bi-level. Apparently this is mostly true of Michigan Avenue and Wacker around the river. I didn't go down there, but am assured that it is where some cheaper bars are and a place where a lot of bums sleep to get out of the wind.

Caitlin was on a mission to find chocolate with bacon in it, which apparently is the specialty of one downtown chocolaterie, but the quest was in vain. Well, at least in that she wanted the truffles but all they had left were the bars. Should have picked one up, but she assured me it was just not the same.

Then we went to a noodly asiany fusiony place called Big Bowl, I think. Decent food, they make their own ginger ale, then mix it with booze. They also have hand dryers made by a vacuum company that feel like a dry, warm hurricane and work pretty damned well.

I made a decision to get up the next day a little bit earlier. A success, I might add.

The museum was pretty cool. It's in one of the very few buildings to survive from the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which was a big deal in this town. And it's a very cool building. The exhibits are setup with children in mind, but do have enough information to be of interest to adults as well. There are aircraft suspended from the ceiling, a wide array of locomotives down below, a rocket car, a mine shaft built in the building, the hull of a submarine with periscopes that look out of the roof, and the list goes on. Really nifty place.

They had an exhibit of railroads chronicling a trip from Seattle to Chicago, which I though particularly fitting.


Met up with another friend, Kelsey Harden, who had just minutes previous finished a trimester of grad school. We went to early dinner at a place called Medici's. The staff shirts say "Obama eats here". And, apparently, he does. Not while we were there, though. But he does live in the neighborhood, which apparently increases Kelsey's commute to her internship. That was a good place, fine burger.

Came back up to Caitlin's area, got coffee. I'd been in there that morning, and came back to find that someone who had come in just previous to me then was still there as dusk was falling. First, though, have to mention it was a beautiful sunset, clear day, the lake was really calm. Should have taken a picture.

Anyway, this fellow was there, said he was looking for work. Quite an outgoing fellow, although the first conversation he started on was the issue of Atheism being surprisingly threatening to religious folks. And this is kind of an odd issue, but Atheists are roughly the most hated group in America. I tend to think of it as entirely harmless, but I'm agnostic and tend to think that anything taken the right way is completely harmless.

Ah, this post is going on too long again.

Nice guy, used to do HR for the government. Kelsey and I went back to Caitlin's place where the radiator relatively promptly started spurting decent quantities of water and was turned off. Then we all talked into the night, and again everyone but myself probably should have gone to bed earlier.

Caitlin is apparently doing the job of three people this week. That sucks. And Kelsey has a job and an internship, which she usually juggles with school. So, she actually feels relieved to just have one of these things. Oh, and Steve just finished his finals and, barring unforseen complications, has a masters now. Woot!