Weblog
07/17/01 08:56 PM: Chicago, Illinois
My brief stay in Chicago was fairly enjoyable. The main obstacle to my full enjoyment was the fact that I was sick the entire time (and am still recovering). I don’t know what I had/have exactly. It seemed to be a cold, the flu, and strep throat all rolled into one bundle of displeasure. So what did I do in the city? Coughed, sneezed, etc.
But seriously… My plane arrived at O’Hare around 12:30 Central Time. We just kind of wandered around until we saw a sign for the car rental area. Upon arriving at the Hertz counter, we were greeted by a sign noting that the counter was closed and directing us to the “Hertz Shuttle.” It did not point us in the direction of the Hertz Shuttle, however. We eventually found a series of signs leading to the “rental car shuttle area.” It was basically like a bus stop type of thing. We waited for a while. A couple shuttle buses stopped. Thrifty and Budget, I believe. I noticed Hertz buses going by on a nearby street. After ten minutes or so, the Thrifty shuttle came by again. Someone who was also waiting for Hertz asked what the deal was. We were informed that only Thrifty and Budget stop where we were waiting and that all the other rental companies stop in front of the baggage claim area. I have to admit that is much more logical place to stop than where we were directed to. But still, we had no way of knowing what was going on since we hadn’t checked any baggage.
So we finally got the rental car and left O’Hare. I think it was about 2:30. It was about 16 miles from there to our hotel. But traffic on I190 and I90/94 was bumper-to-bumper stop and go. So it took well over an hour to get downtown (and to the hotel). Even though we had booked a room with two double beds a month or two in advance, we were told there was only a room with one king size bed available. So they brought in a rollaway cot.
We ate at the Chicago Diner Friday. Pretty nice place. I had the stuffed tofu. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It was a big circular strip of tofu stuffed with vegetables and seitan and such. Not bad at all. The best part was their vegan bakery. Oh man. . . . The brownies and the oat bars(?). So good. I bought some more Monday and took them home.
Friday night I walked around a bit and took some pictures of the city at night. I do hope they turn out well. I had fun taking them anyway.
Saturday I met up with Dave (sans Pete). We basically just walked around the city for five hours. Neither of us are really the carefree, spontaneous, can-always-find-something-fun-to-do sort of person. Since I didn’t know of anything to do downtown and Dave didn’t seem to either, we didn’t exactly “do” anything. We went to this awesome organic supermarket on West Huron called Whole Foods, though. I enjoy places like that. If my memory serves me, I have two pictures of Dave and one of the two of us. I will scan them (and the rest of the pictures) when I get them developed. Dave had to be home for dinner, so we parted ways at 5:00.
Saturday night we went to Amitabul, an all vegan (although a couple desserts had Royal Jelly listed as an ingredient) Korean restaurant. I had the Tibetan High Noon, which consisted of wheat noodles, mushrooms, and Asian vegetables in some sort of curry sauce stuff. It was very good, but we had to rush since it was VERY far from downtown and the cab driver who took us there offered to wait and take us back in half an hour.
Sunday we went to the Warped Tour at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park. It was f’n hot. I still had a massive sinus headache, so eight hours of loud music was just what I needed. It was still pretty fun, though. AFI and Rancid were great. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were cool (and good to see, since they never do shows). Wow are the concessions ever overpriced there. $10 for a burrito. Hah. And people actually bought them.
Monday we had lunch at Soul Vegetarian on the Southeast side (AKA the ghetto, apparently). Good grub for the prices. I had a mushroom pita for $4. Very friendly, nice atmosphere (same goes for the other two restaurants).
Then we left. That was the capsule summary of my trip. Thank you and goodnight.
Also, I’d like to wish Dave well on his excursion to DC. I’m sure he’ll have at least as much fun as I did there with the NSLC. And I’d like to welcome the Other Dave to our little piece of intellectual property.
