Chicago…Part 2
Thursday, July 12th, 2007After seeing Suz I was feeling really bad because I had a ton of fun with her and I didn’t want to leave after only a couple days. I was so excited that even though we hadn’t seen each other for a very long time we still had strong feelings for each other. It effected me a lot when I first got back to Chicago and I think i left her 5 messages pleading her to visit me in Chicago because St. Louis was so close….300 miles was so close after being 1000 miles for the entire summer.
I didn’t linger about leaving St. Louis too long before deciding I still had around 40 walks to complete in Chicago before returning to St. Louis in a few days for my arrival date on July 4. I was walking through the Loop and made my way outside the Loop by the 10th walk or so.
I heard there was a Cubs game in town and I decided that it would be a huge sin if I didn’t go to a game while I was in Chicago. I’m not a Cubs fan, nor do I care for the Brewers, who they were playing, but I thought that as a baseball fan I was responsible for watching a baseball game at Wrigley Field, the Cubs’ home ballpark and one of the oldest stadiums in baseball. if not the oldest.
I found a Fudge store at the end of one of my walks and purchased some fudge and asked the woman behind the counter if she knew how I could get to the Cubs game. She told me I had to take Bus 10 or something, so I made my way to Lincoln Park where I was able to catch the bus.
I saw a guy in his 30’s, prob mid 30’s siting at a bus stop with a Cubs shirt on and asked if he was going to the game. He told me he was, so I asked if I could follow his lead to Wrigley because I was from out of town. He didn’t seem to mind and we were off to the game. During our conversation he asked if I needed a ticket, so I told him I did. He said his friend who he was meeting at the game had an extra ticket I could buy from him, so I told him to ask his friend to reserve the ticket. I was supposed to meet up with this guy from my hostel, who was in his mid 30s and I thought was kinda crazy, who I had randomly met on my way to the Taste of Chicago and he seemed to be way too friendly, but I thought it’d be cruel if I told him that I had no interest in meeting him at Wrigley Field. It could’ve been fun I didn’t know.
We got to Wrigley about 25 minutes later in northern Chicago. We got off at Wrigleyville and walked to this bar where he was supposed to meet a friend he was going to the game with and where i was supposed to buy my ticket. I met his friend who was selling the ticket, bought the ticket, and I went off with the guy who sold me the ticket leaving my newly made Chicago acquaintance behind to meet with some random girl.
I was sitting in the bleacher section with this guy and his friend, who was a girl, but I made the assumption that they weren’t romantically involved. There weren’t any seats available in the Bleacher section so I stood and stood and ended up standing for the entire game. The game was a lot of fun, but afterwards I wished my Cubs friends farewell, bought a little Chicago Cubs bat, and started doing my walks that were based around Wrigleyville.
For the next 5 hours I walked from Wrigleyville essentially back towards a little North of the Loop. It was kind of intense but I had a good time and got to see a lot of the city. By the time I got back to the hostel I was ready to crash but decided to try to go cubbing and drinking with a friend from the hostel but we couldn’t find a reasonable cover charge…meaning no cover charge so I said good bye and made my way back to the hostel.
I ended up meeting this girl from South Korea in my hostel and we started talking. She seemed like a really nice girl and somehow we seemed to enjoy each other’s company, but when we went to the Chicago Food Festival with the rest of the hostel she opted to hang out with this South Korean guy from the hostel, but that didn’t make a difference to me, as I walked around with my crazy hostel acquaintance and some other guy who was closer to me in age and seemed kinda down to earth and chill.
The three of us walked around the Taste of Chicago for a few hours and then we stopped at this large fountain in Chicago, who’s name slips my memory at 1040 this evening. He had seen this girl standing next to the Fountain and started talking to her. I didn’t find her that attractive but I talked with my other hostel friend who was with us while the other guy kept on asking this woman to join us for the evening. I was hoping she would kick him or slap him so everyone could make a clean break, however she didnt do anything of the sort….unfortunately. I got a root beer float and made my way back to the hostel.
After returning from the Taste of Chicago, the girl from South Korea started talking to me in the lobby and we ended up talking about random things before we decided that we were both hungry and left the hostel in search of food. I was in the mood for Chicago’s deep-dish style pizza which I had eaten on numerous occasions while in Chicaog but she wasn’t all that hungry. It was weird hanging out with this girl, not because she was weird or anything, but it was like everything I suggested doing, going straight, turning left, going to a place to eat, she seemed to be ok with the idea. It was almost too easy. It was like I could live my life and do what I wanted to do and this girl would just follow my lead without any questions. I was like, wow this is different/weird.
I suggested to eat at Pizzeria Uno, and she had no qualms with this suggestion even though it was around midnight or 1 am and the pizza took an hour to make. I was like, wow, this is crazy, I wonder if all women from Korea were like this. It was very different. We ate and talked and after eating made our way back to the hostel where we bid farewell.
Somehow, for the next few days we randomly bumped into each other during breakfast and decided to walk around Chicago together because both of us were traveling solo and didn’t mind someone else’s company. It was nice spending time with a semi-regular face, but I felt that by the third day of walking around Chicago the two of us were growing a little fatigued of the other’s company. The initial excitement of meeting someone new wared off, and by the time we both headed to the University of Chicago on my last day in Chicago, and the day of my return to St. Louis for a week, we were ready to part ways, however I did appreciate the company because it made me less sad not seeing Suz. It’s too bad I forgot her name. I’m not very good with names that begin or end with letters that begin with A thru Z.
Life was looking up though….I was returning to St. Louis for a week with Suz, and I couldn’t wait to see her only a few days after seeing her for the first time in about a month.
My only concern with my return to St. Louis was if Suz and I would have enough time to spend together because she was now working and was tired at night, so I had to figure out how I could see her as much as possible when she was in her best mood. This was a very tough task which I ended up realziing wasn’t that easy to accomplish.
My final verdict…Chicago was awesome and I could definitely live there…and it’s not too far from St. Louis, which is a nice perk for now.