Now here is my long awaited account of the whole trip to Chicago. So much stuff happened since I last blogged it’s almost mindboggling to try and recount it, but I’ll give it a try. The trip was a fucking blast. We did pretty much everything we could possibly cram into time we had there and it made for an amazing time. Chicago is a beautiful city and has alot of charm. I love it and would definitely go back at some point. Anyhow, onto the trip. (Just a heads up, this post is beastly big with pictures)
Friday
Corina and I left Paris at 9 in the morning and went on our way. There were 3 cars heading to Chicago, but none of them were taking off at the same point, so it was just Corina and I. We got to travel a whole area I had never seen, from the 402 west, as I had never travelled furthur west in Canada then London. We crossed at Sarnia without too much trouble(aside from a momentary passport freakout). Then into the US. Things got off to a bad start as about a minute down the road Corina spotted a spider(who we named Mitch) hanging from the inside windshield of the car that subsequently fell to the floor before I could get it and was never seen again. Corina has a big fear of spiders, so this wasn’t good. It was a business looking spider too, not just some daddy long legs or something. Anyhow, we got going again crossing Michigan. Boy is that area boring. It’s so flat and unremarkable. I highly doubt anyone extolling the virtues of seeing America and how great it is was talking about central Michigan. There were lots of crazy signs and roadkill along the roads. Makes me kinda realize why people from the US come to Canada and seem to always remark how clean it is. It’s because we spend money to have people clean up the animal goo that collects along our roads. The signs that got me in Michigan were the "Injure/Kill a roadworker $7500 fine and 15 years in jail". Now the sign in and of itself is fine, but it’s the fact that it’s happened so much that they have to post a sign telling people not to kill roadworkers. Really, it’s just common sense. Anyhow, we made it through Michigan, which was the bulk of the trip, into Indiana. Those SOBs and their stupid toll roads. Everyone bitches about how high the taxes in Canada are, yet those go to build our infrastructure instead of nickel and diming you to death for the priveledge of driving the most direct route to places. We spent over something like $15 to travel across the various bridges and roads along the way. Rediculous. Anyhow, we cleared Indiana into Illinois. The rest was pretty straight forward aside from all the crazy highway names. We arrived by 5 central time at the luxurious(well maybe not) Travelodge Downtown about a half hour after Phil, Noel, Tiffany and Vanessa. We were pretty close to everything we needed in the city from our hotel, so even though it wasn’t the best place in the world, it was functional.
We checked in, then regrouped to go for dinner. We made a gangly mob heading through the streets of Chicago with 11 of us in tow. Chicago wasn’t quite what I expected. I had in my mind expected Toronto with more hustle and bustle. This wasn’t the case. It was actually pretty tame and charming. The city reeked of history and culture, with lots of great buildings and local colour to be seen everywhere. My favourite thing about the views of the city was "The El", which is the subway transit system that weaves it’s way through Chicago. It reminded me of playing Burnout 3 everytime, or Blues Brothers. We made our way to Giordano’s to partake in one of Chicago’s delicacies, deep-dish pizza. Boy howdy was that filling. It was terribly good though. I keep craving the stuff since, but I guess I’m kinda SOL.
After dinner we headed up the street to the Sears Tower. We wanted to wait a bit so we could head up closer to dusk, so we wandered around and checked out the raised bridges and whatnot, then headed up. Only Phil, Vanessa and I made the trek and it was well worth it. Everyone else in our crew was either strapped for cash, sick, disinterested, afraid of heights or whatever, so it was just the three of us. We spent over an hour up there checking things out.
It was the perfect time of day to go. We got up just as a storm was rolling in, so we could see it come across and start raining. The whole tower had interactive displays and stuff, so you could learn more about Chicago and it helped you find landmarks easily. We spotted most of the stadiums like Comiskey and United Center. We didn’t get to see Wrigley Field at all because the Cubs were out of town, but we had the general neibourhood pointed out to us. We went up at dusk, so we were able to see all the lights come on and line the streets. It was very cool. I got lots of cool pictures of everything up there. We even saw a rainbow right near the tower. It was actually more like a loop but it was a sight to see. It was a little disappointing that my camera couldn’t get all the pictures I wanted because there was so many great views, but some crummy shooting conditions. We were up there for over an hour and just had a blast.
When we got down the rain had stopped for the most part, so we did a little wandering of the streets. The area we were in seemed to roll up the streets early, so nothing was really open, but we got to check out a couple cool sculptures and whatnot in the buildings. The architechture was amazing. On our way back decided to go check out the big fountain by the lake and witnessed some craziness and had a near death experience. Phil stepped onto the street to cross when we had the right of way when all of the sudden a cube van truck deally guns it’s engine and takes off. It narrowly misses a car waiting at the light and cuts off another coming up to the light. It then smokes through the solid red light and clips the back end of a BMW and keeps going. It then proceeds to blow through another three lights before stopping at the next light, then taking off again. The back was wide open and we can only assume it was some kind of robbery or something. Crazy shit. After that we were pretty wired having witnessed some crime, so we checked out the fountains and headed back to the hotel to tell everyone about our adventures.
Saturday
We got up early and wanted to grab some breakfast. Apparently this is a foreign concept to the folks in Chicago, as there were no places to go. After walking around for about half an hour we ended up right where we started, at the hotel. I had hoped to find a great local place like Corina and I had in Ottawa when we went. We found a couple great local haunts then, but this was not the case this trip. The place in the hotel was pretty ghetto and after partaking in the meal, left me wanting. I got to have some real hashed browns and wasn’t too impressed. And it was expensive. It cost $9 us to get meal I could have got for $4 cdn. That aside, we went about doing some more sight seeing. We went back to the fountain for the sake of Corina and discovered in the light of day it was actually the fountain from the start of Married With Children. We heel toed it through the parks that trace the lakeshore to the Shedd Aquarium.
I got lots of great pictures at the aquarium and saw all sorts of weird and wonderful animals. I’ve never been a huge fish person, but there was so much cool stuff at that place. I know Corina loved the crabs especially. There was a fish there called Granddad that was over 70 years old.
After that we grabbed a bite to eat, then off to Soldier Field. We made sure to show up early so we could take in warmups and stuff. When we got in I checked out the merch stand and picked up a white England jersey and Corina got an England scarf. We then met up with everyone and made our way down to field level on the England end. We got some choice spots and got some great pictures of the squad warming up. Makes me wish I had a video of their warmup so we could use it for our team. The team that England fielded wasn’t that great, but really shows you the strength of their system. There was only 1 starter from the regular England squad in the game(Sol Campbell), but it didn’t dampen things. While I would have loved to have said I saw Beckham, Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry, it just didn’t happen.
We made our way to our seats and they were pretty decent. They were off camera side on the first level. As it turns out it was the end where all the action happened. England struck first 4 minutes in on a free kick from Kieran Richardson from just outside the box.
England struck again before half as Richardson tallied his second. The second half the US pressed and managed a goal to make the game close. David James got hung out to dry on that one with 2 US guys behind the last defenders. Anyhow, final score, England 2 USA 1. It was a good game with plenty of action. Joe Cole and Alan Smith were the men to watch on the field. I found anytime Cole had the ball he made someone look foolish. Alan Smith was either being fouled or commiting fouls the whole game, so it seemed he was the centre of attention alot of the time. The crowd was 48,000 strong, with tonnes of England supporters in attendance. They started songs and were singing for a good chunk of the game. I think the US fans got pissed that they were being outshone in their own stadium, so they tried to match the english supporter in volume. Overall it was a great atmosphere. The stadium was covered with England flags, outnumbering the US flags 10-1 at least. We all piled out and made our way back to the hotel. The walk back was fun walking through the tunnel walkways as people started England chants only to be met with USA chants. It was an experience. Corina got a kick out of the fact that one tunnel had a guy playing the sax to the tune of Sesame Street booming through.
We all made it back to the hotel and chilled for a bit before heading off to the Navy Pier, an entertainment, shopping mecca/tourist trap. There were lots of cool restaurants. We decided to walk there, which was rather ill advised. It took forever, we got lost and managed to end up in the Chicago Police impound lot. After what had to be an hour of walking we finally made it to the Pier. Phil had scouted out a place that had 70 varieties of beer, so it was a mut. I had a beer from Louisiana and Corina had one from Indiana(I think). The selection of food at the restaurant was iffy, but whatever. The wings sucked. All burn and no taste. The dessert was good, as Noel and I got Root Beer floats. We then poked around a bit before Corina and I decided to head back. The walking had killed both of us. I’ve never walked so much that my hips hurt, but that was the case. We called it a night early and cabbed it back to the hotel. Turns out it was less then a $10 cab ride, so we should have just done that in the first place and skipped the hour walk there.
Sunday
We got up über early, as it turns out our clock was 2 hours fast. I wanted to get hustling so we didn’t catch the rush for breakfast. We left at 8:30am. Everyone had gone to a place up a couple blocks for breakfast, so we went to check it out. We show up and they say they don’t open until 7. Turns out it was 6:50 instead of 8:45. Ouch. Either way, we had breakfast. The hashed brown were alot better here, which made the meal that much better. Still an expensive breakfast, but better then the day before. I reiterate my point that Americans don’t know breakfast. Breakfast should be cheap and ample, which neither breakfast was. Corina and I made our way back to the hotel and packed up so we could get a head start on our trip back. We got heading out by about 8:30 as everyone else was rolling out for breakfast.
Corina and James Go To White Castle
On our way out of town we spotted a White Castle, which had been one of the things I had wanted to go to while in the US. It was closed, so we headed on our way out of Chicago. On the way I spied a sign for White Castle, so we stopped for gas and checked it out. I got the 4 burger meal and Corina got the 2 chicken melt meal. The whole gimmick is little gooey burgers that melt in your mouth. They were pretty gross. Corina’s was apparently decent, but it was fulling.
On our way through Michigan we opted to instead go through Detroit instead of Sarnia. The plan was to go through Ann Arbor, home of my beloved Michigan Wolverines. We stopped at the Big House and took a couple of pictures. Twas fun on a bun. Now to go to an actual game there. I’ve always wanted to do this. Being in a crowd of 110,000 people would be just nuts.
Anyhoo, we kept on going onward to Detroit. Boy was that a mistake. The ramp we wanted to take to the bridge to Canada was out(with no forward warning), then we ended up getting looped around where there was another poorly marked ramp to it that we missed. So we ended up in downtown Detroit. It wasn’t nearly as scary as everyone makes it out to be, but either way I didn’t want to be there. I was expecting bullet holes everywhere and to be offered crack while driving through. Corina found the turn to the tunnel to Canada on a small sign so we had to cut over 2 lanes of traffic to make it. We got to the tunnel and finally made our way into Canada. Customs was a snap and we were back in Canada. Whew! I never knew there was so much distance between Windsor and London. I always through they were like two peas in a pod, but that is not the case. We stopped for dinner in London at Pizza Hut and just as we were leaving found out that the London Knights beat the Rimouski Oceanic to win the Memorial Cup, for the first time in their 40 year history, so the employees were all celebrating. It was kind of amusing. We made it back to Paris at 8pm to finish our journey.
By garr that was the whole weekend fun. I had monday off to unwind, which I’m glad I did. I don’t think coming to work on Monday would have been that great. To anyone who is thinking of going to Chicago, I highly recommend it. Everyone we encountered was very friendly and the city was clean and bright, with lots of parks, at least around where we were. We were apparently a couple blocks away from any of the nightlife, but on the cab ride back to the hotel we got to see some of it. And remember the sage advice that this sign gave me. Corina did her run down of the trip, so you should check that shizz out.
And did anyone catch the Live 8 highlights from Barrie? The finale of Keep on rockin in the free world was just terrible. Who are all those people? Gotta love how 3/4 of all the people on the stage for the finale were filler. Leave it to Canada to have a stage full of people that no one has any clue who they are. The one thing from the Live 8 shows that I want to see if the Coldplay and Richard Ashcroft collaboration. They did Bittersweet Symphony together, so that would be interesting, though I could totally see Chris Martin ruining the whole song.
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