Chi-Town

"I can't believe you haven't blogged about our Chicago trip yet!" says Nik.

So here I am. Blogging about Chicago. Happy? I swear, I like keeping a blog but this school year has been hard. Between juggling grad classes, work, and my "personal" life, it has been a challenge to do things like blogging, reading books for enjoyment, and going to bed at a decent hour. These are all goals for the New Year. I am lucky to have support from family and friends.

A few weekends ago I went to Chicago with Nik. His sister was in town visiting a friend, so he asked if I'd be interested in going along--I'm always up for a trip so I was game.

We left Thursday morning for Milwaukee. His sister had given him tickets to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! a news quiz show from NPR. I had never heard of it before but now I've added it to my podcasts that I listen to. I highly recommend it; it's very funny. Mo Rocca was on the panel; if you're not familiar with him, he's a writer with The Daily Show. Milwaukee is a great town; I'd love to go back and check it out some more. I was surprised how beautiful it was with a river that divides the downtown area. It was romantic to walk along at night with the beautiful Christmas lights gleaming--too bad I was stuck there with Nik. ;-) We stopped at a Pub near the theater and had some Irish fare. A beer vender was there holding a drawing to win lovely, cheap, swag and promoting their beer. I entered and won a hat, snow scraper, and a free, crappy beer. No big whoop. It's not like it's a car or iPad or anything.

On Friday we went back to downtown Milwaukee to have lunch with my cousin (who we had stayed with). My highlight of lunch was drinking hot cider with butterscotch and telling "Bob" and other family stories. After lunch we left for Chicago. We had found a condo to stay in using Airbnb. I had never used Airbnb before and I was a little nervous about it. People post their apartments, extra rooms, and homes on this website and you can rent the space like you would a hotel. I was pretty impressed with the experience. The condo we stayed at was extremely nice (although strangely decorated--very "fancy" ornate furnishings). I would use it again; it is nice because you can talk to the owner and see what suggestions they have for your trip. Locals always have the best info.

We went to Second City for a comedy show that Nik's sister's friend was in. It was a student production with a bunch of skits. When we got there, the seats were filled. We found two chairs and brought them over to where we were standing. About three minutes into the show, a woman told us we couldn't sit/stand there because it was against fire code. She asked to see our tickets--which was ridiculous because we had already showed them to her when we first got there. It was strange that they didn't have enough chairs for the amount of tickets sold. She brought us to some chairs on the other side of the theater. We were right behind a pole so it was a pain to see the show. Halfway through the show the actors made a big scene and pointed out the "late comers" hence, us. I didn't like that so much, especially since I felt my cheeks become bright red. Eek.

Saturday's fun revolved mostly around bikes. Nik's sister is all about biking places. Her and her boyfriend purchased a tandem bike the day before. We rode around the Chicago area for a few hours stopping at an area near Lake Michigan to try out the bike built for two. It was like learning to ride a bike all over again! I can't lie. I was a bit terrified--especially when Nik decided to take us out near the water. We survived and apparently I'm supposed to have learned a lesson to trust him. Schyeah! ;-)

Nik and his sister

That evening we had dinner with his sister, her boyfriend, and her friend.  Afterwards we went to another comedy show at iO Chicago Theater. That show was awesome! This show was an improv show, so there were some skits that were funny and some that kind of flopped. Whenever I see a comedy show I get extremely tired. I remember when Kate, Julie, and I went to see Jim Gaffigan in Duluth, I fell asleep during the show because I had used up all my energy laughing. (That is the sign of a good show in my book.) We left the theater and went to a dueling piano bar called "Sluggers." The best part about Sluggers was an incredibly drunk man sitting on the other side of the bar. I'm fairly certain he was there alone or everyone he came with was pretending not to know him. If they were, I sure wasn't judging because he was SUPER drunk and fun to watch. He LOVED to dance. White men sure can dance well. ;-)

It was our last evening in Chicago and trip isn't complete until you get lost. So we went in search for our car and walked around for about fifteen minutes before we found it. We had "dropped a pin" on Apple Maps so we wouldn't have to remember where we parked. The stupid pin didn't drop in the right place on our Apple map. Really, that's the only time I've had trouble with that app--it usually works beautifully.

OK. That was our trip. This was also a lot of writing. Coming up next: DIY tree skirt!