I'm back!
That's right, I've finally returned from Chicago after a wonderful 5 day trip. We got home this morning at about 1:00 AM, so I'm slightly tired today. We left on Tuesday night at about 6:00 pm to Portland, where we arrived at about 8:00 pm. We set our stuff down in our rooms and then headed off for Shari's to get some food. And apparently, according to Ashley, celery makes guys horny, so Garrett decided he should eat some. We finished and headed back to our hotel room and went to bed at about 10:30 pm, because we had to wake up at 4:00 am the next morning, which we did.
After waking up on Wednesday morning, we took a shuttle to Portland airport for our 7:10 am flight to Chicago. We spent about and hour and a half in the airport waiting for our flight to get in. Then we got on the plane for our 3 and a half hour flight to Midway Airport in Chicago. The flight was long and boring on the way to Chicago, I was pretty tired, but didn't sleep much, so I was bored. We landed in Chicago at about 1:00 Pm eastern standard time, which is two hours ahead of the time in Oregon. When we finally got our baggage, we got in a shuttle, and drove through the projects on the way to downtown Chicago, which is where our hotel was. The driver of our shuttle was really nice, and told us about random things to see in Chicago. It took us about an hour to get to the hotel, but we finally got there, and found that they weren't lying when they said it was really posh, it certainly was. We had an awesome view from our room of Lake Michigan, and a little bit of Navy Pier. When we got to our rooms, we sat for a few minutes and then headed off to Navy Pier for a birthday dinner for Sam at a place called Kapi's Italian Kitchen, then we walked around for a short while on the pier, which just happened to have a Bubba Gump's Shrimp shop, which was really cool. I didn't actually buy anything there, but it was cool nonetheless. Well, they really weren't lying when they said it was the windy city, but we had really nice weather the whole time we were there, it was about 60 degrees for the majority of the trip.
When we got back from the pier we discovered that there was a mall under our hotel, and went to go check it out, and walked down the street a bit to 7-11, where I bought 2 bottles of Bawls, and energy drink that is absolutely awesome. We walked back, and attempted to go to sleep. Sam decided that she wanted to sleep in our room, unfortunately, she had a cold, so she was snoring the whole night, I finally fell asleep at about 3:30 am, after being awake for 5 hours, needless to say, I got some earplugs for the next night.
On Thursday morning we went on a walk around Chicago, down Michigan avenue, in the opposite direction of the Magnificent mile. We saw Millenium park, which was absolutely amazining. They have this huge outdoor theater that is really impressive. It fits about 3,000 people, and supposedly, you're supposed to be able to hear like you are in the front row regardless of where you sit. We walked by The Art Institute of Chicago, and into Marshall Field's, which is basically the Chicago equivilent of Macy's. It's about 8 stories, and quite impressive to say the least. We really wanted to see Wicked this week in Chicago, but it was sold out, so we went to get some famous Chicago pizza at a place called Giordano's (sp?). At 1:00 pm that day, we went to free stuff, which is part of the convention where you basically get lots of free stuff.
After free stuff, we headed off to the Art Institute again, but this time we went into the museum. They have some original Monet's, Georgia O'keefe's, and Picasso's. They also had the actual painting from the movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which was magnificent. They also had an exhibit of Miniatures, which are basically miniature replica's of rooms from houses of different eras. After the Art Institute, we went back to the hotel to hear the Keynote speaker, which was a black photographer from the Sun Times, he was really nice, but kinda boring. After sitting through that we went to walk around Chicago some more, which was at about 8:00 pm. We went to Billy Goat's tavern, which is home to the famous "Cheezborger" from the SNL skit. There had been a lot of famous people there in the past, and the food wasn't bad, but hey, it was fun. We then went to see the watertower, which was the only building to survive the great Chicago fire, and then we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which happened to be under the Hancock Building. Our waiter was really funny, and it was just another fun experience.
Friday morning we had sessions, and I successfully made it through the trip without every going to a session, but I had fun regardless. I went out to lunch with Darci to Chipotle where we met 2 girls from another area of Chicago, they were nice, so we had lunch with them. Afterwards, we went to write-offs, which happened to be really boring, and time consuming, so I left that at about 5. At 6:00, we headed off to AMC theatres to see RENT. The people at the free stuff had given out free tickets, and if you got there early enough, you could go see the movie. The first 300 got in, and we thought we were out of luck, but the theater graciously opened another showing at 9:30, so we had to wait for quite a while to go see the movie. After we got in line, a few of us left to go get food and drink. Camille and I ended up going to PJ Clark's, which was down the street from our hotel. I probably could have gotten alcohol if I wanted to, but I didn't and Camille was worried about drunk people hitting on her, so I just told her that we could pretend I was her boyfriend, they wouldn't know the difference. The bathrooms in the place had plastic on the seat, and you press this button, and the plastic rotates, which Camille found fascinating, but I really didn't care about.
After our adventure to PJ Clark's, we went back to the theater and sat down for another few hours, and finally got into the movie. RENT is awesome, to say the least. Totally worth the 4 hours we waited in line for it. The music is amazing, and it was overall a very feel-good movie. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep at about 1:00 am.
Saturday was another sessions day, which I only went to my swap shop at 10:00 pm. I met a couple of people from Nebraska, and other places, it was pretty entertaining, and then we went to get some breakfast at the mall under the hotel. Then we had a tour at the Chicago Tribune at 1:00, which the lady happened to be a half an hour late to. It was overall pretty boring, but we finally left and ate at Dick's. The basic premise of Dick's is that the waiters are supposed to be really mean, so they made like 5 of us wear these hats that were supposed to be condoms, but they were made out of paper and had random insults on them, it was pretty expensive food, but it was fun.
Afterwards, Garratt and I went back to the hotel to get some stuff like money and extra coats to head back to the Navy Pier. We missed going up on the tallest ferris wheel in the world, but the night was still fun. I had some Haagen Daz (sp?). Then we went to the Hancock Building, which we so lovingly referred to as "the Cock," and went up to the observation deck on the 94th floor. It was a beatiful view of the city, I got a couple of pictures, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then we headed off to Borders, and had some hot cocoa. It was raining when we walked back, but it wasn't that bad.
Sunday was relatively easygoing. We ate lunch at Chili's and shopped at a mall. I was pretty tired so Limbo, Sabrina, and I headed back to the hotel and I slept until we had to leave on the shuttle to the airport. Our flight left at 7:30 pm, I slept the whole way back home, so it seemed like a pretty short flight. We landed in Portland at 10:30 pm, and then left for home afterwards. I finally arrived home at about 1:00 am this morning, and slept till late this morning.
Overall, the trip was really fun, and I was sad to go, but I was ready to be home. I think some day I may end up living in Chicago, I absolutely love it. Well, I'll post some pictures real quick. Sorry about the long post. Have a good day.
After waking up on Wednesday morning, we took a shuttle to Portland airport for our 7:10 am flight to Chicago. We spent about and hour and a half in the airport waiting for our flight to get in. Then we got on the plane for our 3 and a half hour flight to Midway Airport in Chicago. The flight was long and boring on the way to Chicago, I was pretty tired, but didn't sleep much, so I was bored. We landed in Chicago at about 1:00 Pm eastern standard time, which is two hours ahead of the time in Oregon. When we finally got our baggage, we got in a shuttle, and drove through the projects on the way to downtown Chicago, which is where our hotel was. The driver of our shuttle was really nice, and told us about random things to see in Chicago. It took us about an hour to get to the hotel, but we finally got there, and found that they weren't lying when they said it was really posh, it certainly was. We had an awesome view from our room of Lake Michigan, and a little bit of Navy Pier. When we got to our rooms, we sat for a few minutes and then headed off to Navy Pier for a birthday dinner for Sam at a place called Kapi's Italian Kitchen, then we walked around for a short while on the pier, which just happened to have a Bubba Gump's Shrimp shop, which was really cool. I didn't actually buy anything there, but it was cool nonetheless. Well, they really weren't lying when they said it was the windy city, but we had really nice weather the whole time we were there, it was about 60 degrees for the majority of the trip.
When we got back from the pier we discovered that there was a mall under our hotel, and went to go check it out, and walked down the street a bit to 7-11, where I bought 2 bottles of Bawls, and energy drink that is absolutely awesome. We walked back, and attempted to go to sleep. Sam decided that she wanted to sleep in our room, unfortunately, she had a cold, so she was snoring the whole night, I finally fell asleep at about 3:30 am, after being awake for 5 hours, needless to say, I got some earplugs for the next night.
On Thursday morning we went on a walk around Chicago, down Michigan avenue, in the opposite direction of the Magnificent mile. We saw Millenium park, which was absolutely amazining. They have this huge outdoor theater that is really impressive. It fits about 3,000 people, and supposedly, you're supposed to be able to hear like you are in the front row regardless of where you sit. We walked by The Art Institute of Chicago, and into Marshall Field's, which is basically the Chicago equivilent of Macy's. It's about 8 stories, and quite impressive to say the least. We really wanted to see Wicked this week in Chicago, but it was sold out, so we went to get some famous Chicago pizza at a place called Giordano's (sp?). At 1:00 pm that day, we went to free stuff, which is part of the convention where you basically get lots of free stuff.
After free stuff, we headed off to the Art Institute again, but this time we went into the museum. They have some original Monet's, Georgia O'keefe's, and Picasso's. They also had the actual painting from the movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which was magnificent. They also had an exhibit of Miniatures, which are basically miniature replica's of rooms from houses of different eras. After the Art Institute, we went back to the hotel to hear the Keynote speaker, which was a black photographer from the Sun Times, he was really nice, but kinda boring. After sitting through that we went to walk around Chicago some more, which was at about 8:00 pm. We went to Billy Goat's tavern, which is home to the famous "Cheezborger" from the SNL skit. There had been a lot of famous people there in the past, and the food wasn't bad, but hey, it was fun. We then went to see the watertower, which was the only building to survive the great Chicago fire, and then we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which happened to be under the Hancock Building. Our waiter was really funny, and it was just another fun experience.
Friday morning we had sessions, and I successfully made it through the trip without every going to a session, but I had fun regardless. I went out to lunch with Darci to Chipotle where we met 2 girls from another area of Chicago, they were nice, so we had lunch with them. Afterwards, we went to write-offs, which happened to be really boring, and time consuming, so I left that at about 5. At 6:00, we headed off to AMC theatres to see RENT. The people at the free stuff had given out free tickets, and if you got there early enough, you could go see the movie. The first 300 got in, and we thought we were out of luck, but the theater graciously opened another showing at 9:30, so we had to wait for quite a while to go see the movie. After we got in line, a few of us left to go get food and drink. Camille and I ended up going to PJ Clark's, which was down the street from our hotel. I probably could have gotten alcohol if I wanted to, but I didn't and Camille was worried about drunk people hitting on her, so I just told her that we could pretend I was her boyfriend, they wouldn't know the difference. The bathrooms in the place had plastic on the seat, and you press this button, and the plastic rotates, which Camille found fascinating, but I really didn't care about.
After our adventure to PJ Clark's, we went back to the theater and sat down for another few hours, and finally got into the movie. RENT is awesome, to say the least. Totally worth the 4 hours we waited in line for it. The music is amazing, and it was overall a very feel-good movie. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep at about 1:00 am.
Saturday was another sessions day, which I only went to my swap shop at 10:00 pm. I met a couple of people from Nebraska, and other places, it was pretty entertaining, and then we went to get some breakfast at the mall under the hotel. Then we had a tour at the Chicago Tribune at 1:00, which the lady happened to be a half an hour late to. It was overall pretty boring, but we finally left and ate at Dick's. The basic premise of Dick's is that the waiters are supposed to be really mean, so they made like 5 of us wear these hats that were supposed to be condoms, but they were made out of paper and had random insults on them, it was pretty expensive food, but it was fun.
Afterwards, Garratt and I went back to the hotel to get some stuff like money and extra coats to head back to the Navy Pier. We missed going up on the tallest ferris wheel in the world, but the night was still fun. I had some Haagen Daz (sp?). Then we went to the Hancock Building, which we so lovingly referred to as "the Cock," and went up to the observation deck on the 94th floor. It was a beatiful view of the city, I got a couple of pictures, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Then we headed off to Borders, and had some hot cocoa. It was raining when we walked back, but it wasn't that bad.
Sunday was relatively easygoing. We ate lunch at Chili's and shopped at a mall. I was pretty tired so Limbo, Sabrina, and I headed back to the hotel and I slept until we had to leave on the shuttle to the airport. Our flight left at 7:30 pm, I slept the whole way back home, so it seemed like a pretty short flight. We landed in Portland at 10:30 pm, and then left for home afterwards. I finally arrived home at about 1:00 am this morning, and slept till late this morning.
Overall, the trip was really fun, and I was sad to go, but I was ready to be home. I think some day I may end up living in Chicago, I absolutely love it. Well, I'll post some pictures real quick. Sorry about the long post. Have a good day.
posted by Elk Hat at 3:16 PM
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