Yes, we are aware that today is Wednesday, and this post is two days “late.” For the last 5 days we were in Chicago!
This was a work trip for Steph that Gene tagged along with mostly for free (ticket bought with points, hotel paid for by Steph’s work, just had to pay for meals and activities). The conference was interesting, but in future years, going for one day would likely be just as useful and cheaper for the company.
We left on Friday morning, also known as Crowdstrike-palooza, but our flight was only delayed by about an hour. After listening to the stories of others at the conference, we feel fortunate to have been mostly unaffected by the outage.
Our hipster hotel
The conference was in the heart of downtown Chicago, so we stayed nearby, in Aloft by Marriot, near the Magnificent Mile. Hotel review – meh. It was very hipster in décor with lots of concrete (walls, floor, and ceiling). All the concrete made the Wi-Fi signal spotty at best, making work from the room impossible. And on Friday and Saturday night the lobby became a makeshift club with a DJ playing EDM music. After all of our sightseeing, we just wanted to get through that lobby and back to our room as quickly as possible.
The deep dish pizza debate
We arrived on Friday and had the afternoon to go sightseeing before hosting some conference attendees for dinner. We were starving so we decided to try the thing Chicago is famous for: deep dish pizza. Around the corner from our hotel was Pizzeria Uno, supposedly the place where deep dish pizza was invented. Our server was fantastic. The pizza was less fantastic. We have since leaned that Chicagoans feel about their pizza like Kansas Citians feel about their BBQ. Everyone has an opinion about which is best, and no one we asked thought that Uno had the best deep dish. Oh well. Live and learn.
The bard would approve
Saturday night, after a long day of conferencing, we did the most fun thing ever. While I was working, Gene had been hanging at Timothy O’Toole’s watching the Royals beat the White Sox. His server suggested we go to something called Drunk Shakespeare. Have you ever watched Drunk History? Same general concept.
If you ever end up in Chicago. Go see Drunk Shakespeare. It was by far the best thing we did the entire trip. Buy the cheapest seats you can; there is not a bad seat in the theatre. The cast is literally right in front of the audience, who are often used in the act. In our case, the play was Macbeth, and I would like to think that Shakespeare would approve of this modern, irreverent telling that still managed to remain true to the original while making us all laugh for two solid hours.
So. Much. Walking
Downtown Chicago is very walkable. How do we know? We’re pretty sure we walked most of it. Over 4 ½ days, we walked a total of 28 miles. That’s over 6 miles per day. We saw pretty much all of the Magnificent Mile (amazing people watching there, by the way). Did you know that the Chicago Tribune building has stones in the walls from other famous places across the US and the world? We stumbled upon it but found stones from the Parthenon, John’s Brown house at Harper’s Ferry, Cologne Cathedral in Germany, and the spot where Washington crossed the Delaware. It was a cool find nestled among the Burberry and Gucci shops. A hidden gem, for sure.
We walked along Lake Michigan and saw the Bean, Centennial Fountain, and the Riverwalk. We ate at some amazing restaurants (The Purple Pig is pricey, but amazing). We both have blisters and sore feet, but we feel like we saw everything we wanted to see while we were there.
What do a U-Boat and a plastic gorilla have in common?
One thing we couldn’t walk to was the Griffin Museum of Science and Technology. That was far enough away to require an Uber. We got there an hour and a half before closing and did a speed tour through the exhibits. We were there for two things: to see an actual U-Boat captured during WWII, and to see the Mold-A-Rama exhibit. Do you remember those machines at zoos and theme parks in the 70s and 80s? The Memphis Zoo had one in their gift shop until at least the early 2000s. For around a dollar you could get a molded plastic gorilla. This museum had ten or so machines set up. We paid an insane FIVE DOLLARS to get a molded plastic Sears tower…that we ended up accidentally leaving behind at dinner later that evening.
All in all, Chicago is a nice place, but it isn’t going to make the nomading list (even though Steph’s company is based there). The people we met were very nice, but there are just so many of them! And as nice as they are in person, put them behind the wheel of a car and they turn into something different. The Chicagoans we saw are angry aggressive drivers who make their own lanes and honk like they have a daily quota to meet. We’re looking to slow down the pace of life moving forward. Chicago is the opposite of that. To each his own, right?
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