Well damnit Courtney, it is your fault when you fucking decide to go to Chicago. In January. For vacation.
A few months ago Delta was running a special on Atlanta to Chicago tickets. $89! How could I resist, knowing that my own dear Brent had moved back to the city and was only working part-time, so as to have more time to show me around town? I called him, got approval for the time off and booked the damn tickets. For some reason, I kept thinking, "Hey, how bad could it be?"
Chicago Travel Tip #1: Don't go there in January. Ever. Even after another 100 years of global warming. I said "Never", motherfucker!
The trip started off well enough, as I got good parking, the plane left on time, and I had one of those delightful seatmates that didn't talk until he had to turn off his laptop for the descent. I came down those escalators at O'Hare and there was Brent, blazing orange in (nearly) head to toe UT gear, for all of those damn Midwesterners to see. Yeah, fuck those damn, um, uh...the University of Chicago? Do they have sports?
Chicago Travel Tip #2: Always eat with a Polish man.
Oh Lord, the food. We did Little India, Greektown, a Greek diner (as Brent says, "All the diners are run by Greeks. Unless they're Armenians pretending to be Greeks."), the world's greatest metal bar/burger place, Chicago-style pizza, and, of course, Chicago-style hot dogs. All amazing. Oh, and those last two? They were breakfast and lunch on my last day in town. With a visit to a Chinatown bakery in between. Yeah, yeah, I gained some weight.
We also did actually touristy stuff like going to the Art Institute to see all the Ferris Bueller paintings, drive through the Batman tunnels, get really drunk in Brent's favorite bar, see some avant garde theater, visit Brent's suburb of origin, visit Wrigley and the Cell, and, my favorite, take a driving tour at night. The view of downtown at night from Lakeshore Drive is absolutely stunning.
I could seriously write paragraphs about our "orgy of meat and cheese", but I don't want to bore anyone with my reliving of every meal that I had (I think I covered that in my Boston post), but I do want to share the oddest story from the trip.
So Saturday night Brent takes me to meet his new girlfriend, Amanda (awesome, beautiful, funny, total fucking bitch, but in the best possible way-he calls it "sassy"), and then head to some desolate pit of a bar for a punk show. I'm not the biggest fan of that newfangled music the kids call "punk", but whatever, I'm on vacation and want to check out the Chicago scene.
Chicago Travel Tip #3: As of January 1, there is no smoking inside in Chicago. This means that when you go in a bar that used to be filled with smoke, it now smells like the bar.
Vomit. The smell of vomit EVERYWHERE. If you ever want to go to a show at The Mutiny in Chicago (and that name alone should tell you something), come armed with air freshener.
After a long bout of bitching, Brent sent me and Amanda up the street to a less offensive smelling bar while he played with his punk friends. We were happy to leave him for sweeter climes, and I was happy to get some one-on-one time with Amanda. I already knew that I liked her, but I had to make sure that she was really good enough for my little Brenty. He may have a dick like a Coke can (his description-apparently Polish men carry their girth everywhere), but he's quite tender at heart. She passed; she's awesome. And she bought me breakfast the next day. Big points there.
We grab some beers and take the only available seats, which happen to be at a table with two guys who clearly worked at the Summer's Eve factory. (I do love that everyone in Chicago says "douchebag". It's non-stop and it's awesome!) Finally we scored a table in the bar proper, deliciously near the old-fashioned popcorn machine where patrons can get free snacks while they drink.
Brent arrives and I manage to make friends with the only guy in the bar from Mississippi, who had also been at The Mutiny, but was driven out by the smell, the crowd, and the lack of music starting on time. He and his friends were sweet, and we had a big, drunken talk about the surface differences between racism in the South and the North. And when I say he was sweet, I mean that I probably could have gone home with him if I tried even a little bit. I wouldn't have, and had I been that drunk Brent would have stopped me, but I mention it only because it was kind of nice to get some male attention.
I'm yammering away to this Mississippian, and suddenly I feel something pinching and biting me on my arm. On my arm down the sleeve of my long-sleeved shirt. On my arm that is facing toward the bar. And away from the old-fashioned popcorn machine from which a hot kernel cover in burning oil has flown out of the machine and down my sleeve, where it is burning me to the point that I had a blister with a minute. The mark is still there; it's going to scar. I told Brent that I was going to tell everyone he burned me with a cigarette 'cause I was bad.
Chicago Travel Tip #4: Go with me. Apparently I am incredibly good luck for finding cabs and strategically placed parking spots. Seriously, when we left that bar, Brent stepped to the corner and raised his hand. Mississippi, who was smoking on the same corner, said "You'll never get a cab here." One rolled up within seconds. That happened ALL weekend. It made the town that much more awesome.
(Side note about my good luck: Brent got the call from CPL while I was there for a full-time position. I'm just that good.)
All was great until I tried to leave on the 5pm flight back to Atlanta. It got cancelled, I was shifted to a later flight, which then got delayed repeatedly. Brent had scheduled work around my original flight, so he couldn't hang out with me. I didn't make it back until late, and didn't get to bed until midnight. I know that's not that late, but after all of the traveling, sleeping on a couch for three days, and being sick (yeah, I was sick the entire trip), I really needed an early night.
Chicago Travel Trip #5: Eat at the Parthenon in Greektown (get the brandy-soaked feta that gets flambeued at your table), Pequod's for pizza (whole wheat deep dish), Kuma's Corner for burgers (try the Metallica, it's spicy as fuck), and The Wiener's Circle for char dogs with everything (a pun that I didn't get until it was too late to not be embarrassed). Orgy. Meat. Cheese.
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