after finishing some time at the mines, we decided to go to a game bar closer to the hotel. with 'game' i am suggesting the use of boards and cards, not mind games. we got there, guessing, probably around midnight...the place seemed pretty empty so we headed to the bar. got a beverage, but let the games go when the conversations started. kristen and i with each other. anouk with an enthusiatic regular, as her son was one of the bar tenders. this woman soon absorbed the rest of the night. and i'm not exactly sure about how anouk got stuck with her other than she's a warm person, easy to talk to, and likes to talk to others. i guess sometimes that combo works in your favor and sometimes you get what's about to happen next.
elvira [ her real name we didn't find out until the end, is paulina ] started by educating us in the art of finding the cheapest beers in the city. which hagen daz vs. another, or bar happy hour's where a hoax or the real deal. she even got into a five minute debate with her husband about whether the price was $2.50 or $2.75...seems like splitting hairs, eh? once that topic got too heated and exhausted, she moved on to her next trick. i mean knowledgable category: auditioning for america's got talent as the one and only u.s. female baritone. she then proceeded to seranade us with 'good night sweet heart' and some 'om-bopa, om-bop' elvira theme song, endeding with a crowd search for a third song; as she was sure that she would make it into the third round [ purely on the entertainment factor. dressed as elvira ( she's been practicing for years from a cardboard cut out). but sure that the third round was up in the air and that she wouldn't make it to the top 40 or how many make it to the big show round. ]
lunch was fast, good, and great to see russelle. so much so, that we decided to meet up again for dinner and us three travelers were left to our own devices for the rest of the afternoon. did some millinium park, 'the bean', harris theatre, and the art institute of chicago museum walking. the city is amazing. from just the few times that i have been there, i want to go back again everytime. it's got such an easy feeling. pretty easy to get around in, and freindly in the un-pretencious ways that some cities can start to take on. getting on to around four o'clock, we headed back to the pier to catch a boat and some history and views of the city in a different way. a different way it would be, because directly and approximately the second that we stepped on the boat...the city got fogged out.
it was quite ironic the timing, because as we were listening to the story of a large fire and the burning down of almost the entire city, we were seeing a white screen in front of us...and it got cold. briskly windy and just plain dreary. we finished out our hour long tour by sitting in the inside hull of the boat and deciding what we would like to do for the rest of the evening, being that the planned trip up the hancock tower to see the view was now out of the picture. when we got back to the pier, we did some walking around the shops and found ourselves in the middle of quite an impressive stained glass exhibit. tiffany stained glass that is, real old. then booked it back to the hotel, spruced ourselves up, and decided on a fondue place for dinner [ kristen was feeling a little adventurous ]. dinner was awesome, with plenty of laughs and russelle, her partner jenny, and there friend kat as joiners too. it's nice to get to hang out with people that you haven't seen in quite a few years and everything just seems to fall back into place. i like it!after dinner was a night out in wrigleville..which we didn't realize would be so quiet. i guess with the cubs not playing and it getting into football season, the area can get a little quite. not to mention the monday night aspect of it all. we did some bar hopping until we finally came across a little gem [ and by gem i mean some other people to hang out with ] at mullen's bar. there were three guys chillin', havine a guy night, that seemed like a good group to introduce ourselves too. consisting of dale [ a chicago-ian, thus nicknamed 'chicago' ], trevor [ from boston, nicknamed 'tre-vah' or 'bah-ston' ], and dustin [ from chicago and going through a break-up, so sorry to say, but nicknamed 'depressing'. he just was not enjoying himself. ] we closed down mullen's bar, but weren't feeling the need to take the train home yet, so we popped over to an open later night bar. ended up just sitting around and chatting for a-good-nother hour or so until we indeed, closed down another bar. we're getting on to 3, eh pressing 4 in the morning. decide that it's time to read the writing on the wall and call it a night. but jeez, those boys were funny. we even got dale to put on anouk's heels and try to walk the couple blocks between the bars. needless to say, i think that he'll have sympathy for a woman in the future if she says that her feet hurt and wants to walk slower.
the next day seemed to go by far too fast. we did some walking around michigan avenue, made a stop at the lego store to build ourselves men, and grabbed a stuffed pizza at giordano's on rush. now the time had come, the very sad moment, when kristen was to fly back to kansas city after some of our most wonderful time together. see you later, gator! but happiness would soon show it's head as anouk and i still had many miles to travel, and we would also be joined by another
slo-cal, dougie fresh.
notable illinios:
1. the use of fractions on mileage signs. as in 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, etc.
2. anouk made the acute observation that they have a billion and a half bowling alleys. we didn't know if this was because when the weather gets cold, it's nice to have something to do. if it was because as a total city, they idolize the movie king pin. or if it's just a noticed coinsidence.
3. accident roll out sites on no shoulder highways.
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