Third installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.
You end up sitting next to a judicial clerk on the plane. Them lawyers just never leave you alone.
Your gf is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND when you get to the bus stop where she said she’d be. She shows up two minutes later and practically tackles you.
You eat delicious Greek food in an area of town known as Greek Town. Fancy that. The Walgreen’s “OPEN 24 HOURS” sign is also in Greek. Once at the restaurant, you watch as waiter after waiter serves guests an appetizer known as souvlaki that basically amounts to a slab of soft cheese lit on fire and placed on the table as the flames subside. The waiter lets out an “opah!” as he lights the cheese on fire. You wonder how it feels to say “opah!” every time someone orders that dish. You also wonder why every waiter is a waiter and there are no waitresses.
You proceed to an Irish Pub for a pint of Guinness. The place is packed and you’re greeted by a throng of guys singing drinking songs with glasses raised. You swear your flight took you to Chicago, not Ireland. GF leads you upstairs where a band of older guys in Hawaiian shirts plays a mix of Irish music and, you suspect, bluegrass. You smile and shake your tuchus with GF.
GF falls asleep on your shoulder on the bus ride home and spontaneously wakes up at precisely the right time because you had no idea where you were going and would have missed the stop.
Breakfast at a bagel shop leads you to run into a guy in a Longhorn cap waiting at the front. He’s with two girls. While walking past, you see the hat, realize he must have gone to UT, and say, “Whoa Hey” mid-stride. One of the girls turns around and gives you an unsavory look assuming you directed your comment to her. In the split second you realize what just transpired in her head, you seize on the opportunity and give her a nod through the window as you leave the restaurant. GF laughs.
You go to your first Cubs game and first game at Wrigley Field and stand in awe at this historical monument of American sports. This is the first professional sporting event you’ve seen in a traditional open-roof structure. Actually, it’s basically just a field with seats – some covered. There is no jumbotron. A 10-year-old girl in the seat next to you is wearing a Cubs hat and a Cubs jacket. She’s keeping track of the game with a pencil and a scorecard complete with player’s numbers, the plays, errors, and other details. She’s engrossed in the game, deep in concentration. Dad returns shortly and she updates him on the latest happenings. You notice that homes across the street from the field have bleachers built on the roofs. The two or three story narrow duplex-like homes common in Chicago make perfect perches from which to watch a game over Wrigley Field’s short walls. The Cubs win. Everyone screams. Earlier that week, they beat your Houston Astros two out of three games. You’re not too happy about that, but today’s game against the Rockies posed no problems of allegiance. You see someone else in a Longhorn hat. Go Horns.
On the way to the Aquarium, GF realizes the Blue Man Group performs in a venue nearby. Turns out not only do they have tickets for that afternoon’s show, but they’re in Row G (ie, 7) and you bust out the Student ID to get half-price tickets. BMG put on an amazing show beyond your expectations. It’s a conglomeration of music, wit, physical comedy, and creative audience participation. Toilet paper is utilized. Twinkies are cut with hand-held power saws and consumed. Paint is poured on the skins of tall bongo-like drums that are played. Said paint flies into the air with each strike of the drum and eventually ends up on a canvas. Viola, painting.
You meet GF’s friends for sushi and stuff your face full of rice and fish. It is quite possibly the first time you have eaten sushi in a group setting in which all the sushi ordered was actually eaten – there were no leftovers. The group congratulates itself on ordering exactly the right amount of sushi.
You proceed to a local bar. You encounter the first friendly bouncer of your entire life. He asks where you’d like to sit. Inside or out? Shall he get you a table? Have a menu brought over? You say “inside, thanks.” On the way inside, the owner greets you and immediately offers a table.
While walking to bar #2, your old knee injury starts acting up. Riding a bike for 180 miles when you were 19 was kind of a dumb idea, especially when you stubbornly rode the last 10 miles in excruciating pain. You’re paying for it now, six years later. You go home and nurse the bum knee.
The next morning, knee feeling better, you have brunch with more friends of the GF. This time, an Orthodox Jewish couple. You are not to hug GF. You may not kiss GF. In fact, do not even touch GF. Also, do not touch the wife. The couple is exceedingly warm and friendly and are very, very happy to have guests. They don’t get out much. There is enough food on the table to serve a family of 10. After much interesting conversation, the couple is kind enough to give you and GF a ride to the Aquarium (which you skipped to watch BMG) in the husbands new Honda Civic Hybrid. When stopped, the engine basically turns off and you swear he stalled the manual transmission.
There is a huge line at the aquarium but since GF is a member, you WALK PAST ALL THE POOR SAPS IN LINE AND GET IN FOR FREE. You think to yourself, “ Wow, gf is pretty handy to have around. Excellent job.” The beluga whales are fun and make cool sounds. The dolphin show is impressive but would have been better if you had come an hour earlier and actually gotten seats.
There is no skydiving on this trip, but you do go to the top (95th floor) of a skyscraper and share a glass of wine with gf in the lounge. The views are phenomenal.
For dinner, you have one of the best filet mignons you’ve ever had. It really is an exciting restaurant. Afterwards, you head to a small jazz club and watch a quartet do their thing onstage from the upstairs bar. The singer, female, takes requests from the audience. All you gotta do is scream out an artist’s name. I scream “Ray Charles!” and she obliges, though I’m not sure she got to him before we left. The band is tight and the singer is right on key. She looks good sporting her dance moves. You make a mental check mark next to the “see jazz or blues in Chicago” check box on the “Things You Must Do One Day” list. Mission accomplished.
Brunch the next morning with more of gf’s friends leads you to a tapas restaurant. You gorge on seafood, veggies, chicken, bread, and sangria. There’s nothing quite like an afternoon buzz. You realize the last time you had sangria must have been when you were in Spain. That’s way, way too long.
You catch a ride to the museum and gf, the one without the watch, realizes you have like an hour before it’s time to leave for the airport. You speed through a series of paintings that reads like an art history course lecture. The heavyweights are all in effect: Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugain, Seraut, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, and on and on. Remember that painting of the old couple with the farmer holding the pitchfork? Yeah, that was there too. As was the painting of a few lonely people having a late-night cup of coffee in a diner.
Then gf, in a blaze of glory, puts the both of you on the wrong bus back to her friend’s apartment at which you’ve been crashing. You’re several miles away from your luggage and the apartment. In a rush, you find an ATM, get some cash for a cab back to the apartment, and cunningly leave your debit card in the ATM machine. Lucky for you, this little morsel of information occurs to you only at the airport. After smacking your forehead until you feel better, you proceed to the plane and continue a nifty game you and the gf have been playing since your weekend in Austin.
Back in Houston, you’re greeted by highways 10 billion lanes wide and wonder what the hell went wrong in this city. Haven’t they heard of public transportation? Oh, not that kind. That kind.
And that, in a nutshell, is pretty much what happens when you go to Chicago. I promise. Identical results not guaranteed.
