Flashback: Chicago

Hardly seems like a flashback, but I've been too busy to consistantly blog! Impossible on the road, and once I get into a city, I'm immediately figuring out where cool stuff is and walking around. But while its fresh in my mind, here's Chicago.

I pulled into the Felix hotel at around 5; its a hotel my old employer, RFP, owns, so I'm very familiar with, at least, its financial performance (thanks, Mike!)

Never having been to Chicago, I figured I'd go for a walk. But being me, that turned into the rest of my night, essentially! Walked to the canal, saw the Chicago theatre, saw the AMAZING architecture, went to Navy pier and rode the ferris wheel, then went to Millenium park. After realizing I hadn't eaten in about 8 hours, I went in search of food. But there were so many options, I couldn't decide! The problem with being downtown is that a lot of the restaurants are either super expensive, or chitzy, andI didn't have time to really understand the subway and go to a place like Lincoln Park. I did find a piano bar, and woozily steped in for a glass of cold white wine. The duet playing immediately went into a Fleetwood Mac medley. I can't escape them, and I love it! Half drunk (two glasses of wine go to your head on a dehydrated empty stomach), I went back to the hotel restaurant for some great pork, cabbage, and couscous. Wound up meeting a Red Sox fan from Arkansas, into town for an education grant proposal, amd chatting with him amd the waitstaff until closing at 12:30.

I've never been to Chicago. I always kind of mocked it as a lame midwestern New York that just didn't have the worldiness that makes NYC on par with Paris, London,Tokyo, Moscow, or Beijing. And I couldn't have been more wrong. Chicago is awesome. Beautiful, even though it was about 95 degrees with a dew point of 88. It is true though; everybody is wayyyyy more nice than the west coast. I'll have to head back sometime and really get a feel for the city...