Long Ass Post on My Chicago Trip

If you only look at the pictures, I don’t blame you. Click on them if you’d like to see them slightly larger.

As you probably have known, my friend Erin and I went to Chicago to celebrate my birthday (15th), Saint Patrick’s Day (17th), and Mandie’s birthday (umm… sometime next week). Mandie lives in Chicago working on an internship which is great for us because we got a place to sleep for free. To get there, we took the South Shore line from South Bend Regional Airport. $10.55 to get there and $9.00 to get back. I’d say we saved money by going with them rather than by driving. Plus, we’d get to avoid the Dan Ryan which by itself, is worth it.

Erin got me a book on Barak Obama for my birthday. She's a fan and she's hoping to convert me.

Oh, yeah—Mr. B. took us to the airport where we had to use the newly built roundabouts. I’m telling you, most Americans can not handle those “God damned things” as Mr. B. would call them. Based on the idiot driver who charged into the roundabout without yielding, I’d have to agree.

On the South Shore line near Gary. The nastiest place between home and Chicago. Basically, that's just Indiana.

It was time to eat when we arrived in downtown Chicago where Mandie was waiting for us with free merchandise from the bar where she had already started her drinking. I got a Baileys hat with “St. Patrick’s Day – Chicago 2007” on it. I would have gotten a shirt too, but they didn’t have one with my size. We decided that we would eat there in downtown at a place called Giordano’s. I’ve never had a Chicago deep dish pizza before and I wanted to try it out. Hot damn, if it wasn’t some of the best pizza I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming.

I could have sworn that I was told that Mandie lived in The Loop. Turns out that she only works there. We had to catch the Red Line to Lawrence to get to her place. It’s a nice apartment that she shares with five other people. One of them gave up her bed so I had a place to sleep. It was late and we knew we had to get up early the next day so they went to sleep while I watch TV for a while before nodding off myself.

How can you not love a view like that?

Other than the sucky view from the bedroom window and every window on the north and south side of the apartment, it was a nice neighborhood. One that I wouldn't mind living in-- if the rent was slashed by 75%.


Let me tell you, the most frustrating part of the whole experience was not allowing for time. When it comes to trips and such, I am a planner. Those two are not. The River Dyeing was at 10:45 in the morning. We left just before ten. If had been me. I would have been at the Chicago River hugging the bridge rails at the time we left. When we got there, there wasn’t a place for us as I suspected there would be. So I had to lift my camera over the crowd to see. Then we realized that we were too far up the river to see them dye the river so we left for breakfast thinking we would come back later and see it.

Click on the picture and you can see the river start to turn green between the kayakers.

After breakfast, we went over to Millennium Park to see the parade. We were getting there a bit late (again) but we climbed up a retaining wall and got to sit on a high ledge. If we fell, we probably would have broken some bones or died. Although we were a distance from the street, we were able to sit and see over the crowd. I was happy even though we realized that we were sitting just past the disband point. Still, we got to see some interesting things. Personally, I thought the bagpipers were the best part of the parade. Erin held out hope to see Sen. Obama. It didn’t happen.

Anywhere you can go for a view.

The best part of the parade was the first thing we saw.

Umm, where was Good Luck Bear?


The normally green Chicago River and the dyed green Chicago River.

Before the parade had ended, we found a lower part of the wall ledge to jump from. We then headed for the river to take a couple pictures of the green water. After doing that, I wanted to go up the Sears Tower. A gentleman there told us that the wait was over an hour. Erin and Mandie didn’t want to wait that long and said that they were going to go do something else and that they would come back and meet me. Well, I’m not going to wait and go up that thing by myself! (That made me sound like I’m afraid of heights but I’m not.) Before we left, I made sure to pick up a couple of postcards.

Chicago River flowing out into Lake Michigan. View from Michigan Avenue.



Navy Pier was not very busy when we got there. There wasn’t really much that was open or to see but we got dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. It was such a good dinner that ended up costing about $105 dollars for the three of us. But we split a salad, an onion ring appetizer, three entrées, and a dessert. It was a great time. Plus the waiter was very friendly. The food left us so full that we had to go back to the apartment and rest before heading out to the bars.


Navy Pier

I was ready to go at nine. One of Amanda’s friends had called and said that she and some others were at a gay bar in Boystown. I was pumped. Amanda and Erin were not. They were sleeping and I was not happy. It appeared that there were going to go to sleep on Saint Patrick’s Day. I was about to loose it when I heard, “Do we still want to go out?” By ten, I was about to steal Mandie’s phone, call Cora up, and ask her for directions. I had no idea where in Chicago I was or where I was going but by God, I was going to go somewhere that night. Eventually, though Mandie got up and dragged Erin into the land of the living with her. They decided that they didn’t want to go to the gay bar. Yeah, thanks. So we ended up at some lame bar where all people were either at the bar or reclining in booths talking. After one drink there, we moved down to Wrigleyville where we went to Sluggers which was on the south-western side of Wrigley Field. It was better than the previous bar, but it was a sports bar. It’s some place I would enjoy back home but I had my heart set on the gay bar. It was entertaining still but after 1:30, I was ready to go to bed.

I passed right out and got my sleep in because I was ready to head into Boystown the next day to see the sights. The girls, well they decided to sleep and then go grocery shopping. By the time we did that, we only had an hour left before our train back to South Bend was due to leave. I can not begin to tell you how disappointed I was. You know, I don’t know if I would have frozen up at the gay bar, or freaked out in Boystown, but I would have at least liked to have tried it.

I had to good time overall, and I am glad I went. Perhaps some other time, I will get the chance to so some of the things I had hoped to do in this trip.