So last weekend, as you all know, I went to Chicago. The trip was in honor of Ian's 30th birthday and fun was had by all. The other attendees have each blogged their accounts and recollections of said fun. I'm not sure that I have much to add to their descriptions. Although, some seem to be just a little sketchy on the details:) You can follow links to their blogs throughout this entry but I'm adding my two cents in as well. As promised, there will be pictures. And video. Oh, did I forget to mention the existence of video? How careless of me:)
Day 1
Our arrival in Chicago was without real incident. Yes, there was delay. Delay by air. Delay by train. And delay by people who promised the hotel was only 3 blocks from the L stop. But, overall, without incident. The party got started with a little nutritional stop for pre-drinking sustenance at Ian's favorite pizza place.
After we were sufficiently stuffed we headed out for some alcohol-influenced fun. I'm really not sure what I can say about what happened next. After all, it's already been documented. I don't feel I really have anything to add. And besides, don't they say something about a picture being worth a thousand words . . .
Gigi found the night air very refreshing on the cab ride home and decided the best way to fully appreciate it was to stick her head of the window. This resulted in her new nickname C-dog. I'll leave it up to y'all to figure out where the "C" comes from:)
You may be thinking "surely the night ended there." Not quite. First, Gigi wanted to sing Ian and I to sleep . . .
Day 2
The day was good. We slept in. We drank coffee. We ate lunch. We shopped. We explored Chicago. What more could a couple of twentysomethings and a brand new 30 year old ask for? How about a couple more friends from the north? The day was good. The night was better.
We again felt the need to fill our stomachs prior to ingesting the large amount of alcohol we suspected was in our future. A brewery down the street accomplished this for us and soon we were off. Next stop, the L. Gigi thought she could channel the Karate Kid and maintain her balance on the overcrowded moving train without a hand hold. She was wrong. But the random guy she fell into seemed to take it in stride.
The discovery of a Tequila Bar may have been our group's downfall. It really wasn't our fault. It had this nice green awning outside. It looked so friendly. So benign. There were chips. There was salsa. And, of course, there was tequila. I passed on the initial round of shots and kept my margarita tally down to one. This went largely unnoticed by the rest of the party and I'm not really sure what prompted the decision on my part. No matter. I was otherwise a full participant in the evening's festivities:)
Katie apparently has a thing about cleavage. More specifically, about photographic evidence of cleavage. While we all showed a little somethin' somethin', I didn't feel it was necessary to post all the pictures for you here. Instead, I've decided that the boys will represent us very nicely.
After we had our fill of tequila, we decided some dancing was in order. We opted to follow the recommendation of our new friend the bus boy. His advice led us to a club not far from our hotel. This dancing has been described by others as dirty. But I assure you, good clean fun all around. Or at least comparatively. No shirts were lost in the making of the evening:)
We did, in fact, make it safely back to our hotel that evening. Again, I'm not exactly sure what to say about what happened next. There was certainly some craziness with a little bit of "ornery" thrown in. And yet another serenade at bedtime . .
Day 3 The next day dawned - ok, so dawned would be slightly inaccurate - and breakfast was in order. Some coffee, a few eggs, and several really excellent Cinnamon rolls later and we were all a little bit better off than we started out. The day was fairly,and necessarily, low-key. The evening had us meeting up with a few friends of Ian's who lived in the city. And then?
The Hot Dog Adventure Tour! I had been to Chicago on several occasions prior to this trip. But I'd never had a Chicago dog. And I love hot dogs. I knew that this had to be the trip to remedy the hole in my culinary education. Luckily, I also knew Jesse to be somewhat of a hot dog junkie and figured he'd be up to the task.
We'd done a little research before this weekend. Didn't want to go in cold:) We also had done some leg work over the preceding 24 hours. After clearing our choice with a few locals we got started - Clark Street Dog it was. We located the eatery and got to eating. I only ordered a single dog. We'd had a huge "breakfast" at around 2 pm and I wasn't starving. Mistake. Once I got a taste I needed more. Before I could get up to order a second serving, Jesse suggested that perhaps we could move on and try another offering. Brilliant.
We found ourselves at The Wiener's Circle . Here you had the option of a "char" dog. Yes, please. I did mine in traditional Chicago style - onions, tomatoes, mustard, and celery salt. No ketchup in site. HUGE sacrifice for me but well worth it. Unfortunately I wasn't strong enough to try for a third location but I finished the night with a very, very happy belly.
Day 4 Left super early the next morning so my story ends here. But the memories? I think they'll stick around for a while. Ian, Gigi, Jesse, and Katie: thanks for the fun:)
ha ha, my favorite part is where you quote us all on getting back to the hotel on friday night - the funny part being that you're probably the only person who actually remembers it.
3 comments:
Good lord. I still don't remember most of Friday night. Thanks for the pics and video!
Your blog has been flying under the radar, apparently. Consider yourself tracked down.
ha ha, my favorite part is where you quote us all on getting back to the hotel on friday night - the funny part being that you're probably the only person who actually remembers it.
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