Chicago - Day One

We had fun in Chicago recently. You may recall Chad's Valentine's Day secret message (go back to 16 Feb to read the original post) about Thai Food in Chicago. The real story is that there was a Steel seminar being given there during the week of our Spring Break. Chad presented a convincing case to his boss regarding the usefulness of attending that seminar and we started planning our trip. (There were seminars closer, but not during Spring Break when we could get away easier.)

We got my ticket out of Chad's frequent flyer miles and headed east. Actually, we headed south first. My mom watched the 5 oldest kids for us while we were gone those two nights. We flew out of Salt Lake on Monday at a decent hour (translate = I didn't have to get up early or rush out the door). It was Sarah's first plane ride.


She slept the whole way there. Sometimes her eyes opened, but she fell back to sleep before she ever fully woke up. I was actually a little surprised. The flight was 2 1/2 hours.

We arrived in Chicago about 2 PM. We didn't have to worry about collecting luggage since we packed light enough to fit everything into our carry-ons. We hurried up to wait for the shuttle to the hotel.

We booked a room at the hotel that was hosting the seminar because it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. Hindsight is a lovely thing. But it doesn't help the present. Which is what we found ourselves in at the time. The hotel was very nice, but in more of an industrial area with little to walk to or entertain a pedestrian. We were farther away from Chicago than we expected to be.

The shuttle was a twenty-minute ride one way. It left the hotel every hour on the hour, with the last departure leaving at 10 PM. In order to catch the train into the city, we had to go back to the airport. So by the time we checked in and caught a breath, we were getting on the 5 PM shuttle. The train ride into the best parts of Chicago takes at least 40 minutes. It was 6:30 by the time we bought our 3-day train passes, boarded the train and made it downtown. The shuttle driver warned us that his last pick-up at the airport was 10:30. If we weren't there, we'd have to hire a cab to get back. So of course, I have that stressful piece of information in the back of my mind the whole time.

Coming from a quiet, country life, the sky scrapers in Chicago were impressive. These were some shots we got our first night there.

It's not that I've never been in a big city before, but it's not a common thing for me. I really do prefer a little more sky line and less steel and glass. But still, it's impressive.

Now that we'd FINALLY made it to Chicago, we had a goal to find a Thai restaurant. Isn't that really the reason we'd come? wink, wink

The phone book listed TONS of Thai restaurants. It was a little deceiving. We expected to be able to walk down the street and find one. As it turned out, we couldn't even find anyone that knew what Thai food was! We were in Walgreens (there are as many Walgreens in Chicago as there are LDS churches in Salt Lake City) to buy the diapers I didn't want to pack and asked the clerk if she knew where a Thai food restaurant was.

She asked if that was like Asian food. I assured her that it was, and she gave us directions to a Panda Express, assuring me that it was delicious food. Once she said Panda Express, I stopped listening. I just thanked her. I wondered if she noticed that we went the opposite way of the directions she gave?

Eventually, we had to pick a place to eat so that we could get back to the airport in time. We found a little Italian place under the train tracks. It was quiet and only one homeless man came in while we were there. It seemed he was a regular.

They had free bread as an appetizer. I had some...as you can probably see.

The waitress was really nice. She was 20-something. She definitely seemed Italian and spoke like the typical stereotype. She gave Sarah plenty of attention. She said she had a niece that was chubby too, although she used much more colorful language.

It was a cold night and we had Sarah bundled up as well as we could...considering we were traveling light.

On our way back to the train station, we stopped by Dunkin' Donuts to take a dozen back to the hotel room. There wasn't any free breakfast at this hotel. They have almost as many Dunkin' Donuts as they do Walgreens. 7-11 seemed pretty popular, too. These are all things we just don't see much of around home.

The trains were loud, but much cleaner than I'd feared. Most people kept to themselves. We probably were screaming tourist, but what could we do? No one tried to mug us. Most interactions we had with people were because of Sarah. For three days, Sarah was the highlight: old people, young people, men, women. You'd think they don't have babies in Chicago. I never saw anyone under 5-ish on the trains the whole 3 days. Of course, Sarah is especially cute so I can see how they would be caught in her spell.

We made it back to the airport in time for the 9:30 shuttle. We slept good that first night!