Chicago
It was quite a weekend out in Chicago. I’m just happy to remember any of it! The Bootsnall crew can really throw down!
Friday was pre-party night. Having arrived early in the day I met up with Steve and Bill who I knew from the NYC party. We opened a bottle of wine at the hostel, which Bill proudly brought with him, admitting to limited wine knowledge. While we sipped wine and chatted we ended up meeting a few other people who were taying in the hostel and taking them with us to the bar, Duffy’s, to meet the rest of the group.
Turns out Duffy’s was my kind of nightmare! It was an enormous, cavernous place with really yound drunken people and music that was deafening. We got a beer but quickly decided we were not going to be able to hang out here.
We left as soon as possible, but wanted to find someplace close to keep the group together. Well right next door was the best little bar we could have hoped for. It was chock full of local characters and served $3 Guiness. Sounded good to us. We quickly made friends with the owner and he told someone, later that night, that he’d never sold as much Guiness in a night.
I thankfully ended up leaving early because it spared me from the next part of the evening. Everyone went back to the hostel and broke out more liquor, namely Aftershock! Ick! I’m so glad I got the drunken hicoughs and headed home early.
Saturday we, all in amazingly good shape considering the previous evening, went out and about in Chicago. We headed to the 26th annual Blues Festival and heard some great tunes. I took off for a little while to watch Argentina v. Cote d’Ivoire play their first World Cup game, then met back up with some people for a walk around Grant Park, a huge park on the Michigan Lake-front.
It was a beautiful day and it was nice to walk around, the sounds of the Blues Fest drifting towards us, a take in a little bit of what makes Chicago a great city. We ended up in Millenium Park which is a crazy mix of modernist architecture and sculpture, including the Cloud Gate which Chicagoans calls ‘The Bean’. It’s an enormous, well, bean-shaped object that’s super shiny and reflects the skyline. I have to say, it was pretty darn cool!
That night the whole group got back together for a trip to The Map Room, a cool travel themed bar with over 400 beers. They had some crazy ones, Madd Bitch, Fin d’monde and Great Lakes Elliot Ness to name a few but my favorite was Mahr’s Brau Ungespundet-Hefetrub. (and yes, I did have to just look that up).
From Map Room it was on to Louie’s for karaoke where the whole boots-crew got together and sang Billy Joel’s For the Longest Time. It was…well…just plain funny. We stayed at Louie’s till closing and I thought that was all for the night but it wasn’t…it was off to the craziest place I’ve EVER been…which I will write about in the next post. Stay tuned…
Tags: Round the US
LizG