Peanuts and Cracker Jacks!

We went to the see the Chicago Cubs take on the St. Louis Cardinals on 22 April, 2007, 1:20pm at Wrigley Field.
Mikey, Shelley, and Pablo waiting for the L.
Mikey and me
Get on the red line, and get off at Addison to see the Cubs at Wrigley
The scoreboard at Wrigley
Fans watching from the rooftops of the houses around Wrigley field
Oh yes, and there was a baseball game. I did end up eating cracker jacks, but no peanuts. The Cubs came back in the 9th, but ended up losing to the Cards in the 10th by 3 runs.

Drinking around downtown

Mikey, Shelley, Pablo, and I ended up spending Saturday night eating good food, and drinking good drinks. Our first stop was a Japanese restaurant called Kizoku (www.kizokusushi.com) that Mikey frequented. It was very good, with interesting rolls, and terrific presentation.
Next came a walk over to Nacional 27 (www.nacional27.net), a latin restaurant. This was good:
and so was this...

Then we went to a wine bar called Cru (www.cruwinebar.com) on Deleware and Wabash, where Mikey and I shared a flight of red and a flight of white, and a cheese flight for the four of us. I am not the wine expert by any means, but it was pretty good. (I prefer beer or hard stuff, but this is good too)
Then finally we went to a tequila bar where I had a pineapple mojito (no tequila, I know), but it was very good. It was a fun and happy Saturday night.
Note: Mikey lives near a chocolate factory, which was making something or another all weekend. It smelled sooooooo good around his condo!!!

Architecture and Chicago

Mikey and I decided to go on an Architecture Boat Tour while Shelley and Pablo went to Millenium Park. (We'd been there, they'd done the tour before). The tour came highly recommended from Chicago natives (Janel, Ian, and Allen), and after being on the tour, I will also highly recommend it. The tour guide lady gave the history of each of the famous buildings, along with what type of architecture each building exhibited. I had a couple of favorites:
John Hancock building - took 5 years to complete it, used 1/3 less steel than would usually have been required for a building of that size, and it is home to the Signature Room, which has a lovely view of the Chicago area, especially the ladies bathroom, as I discovered during my last trip to Chicago.

Merchandise Mart - This is presently home to numerous design/home decorating vendors. But I mainly like it because of the bronze busts on the outside that are displayed on pedestals.

Marina City - It's like a corn cob on the river! I was wondering if people ever get dizzy trying to get up to their parking spaces...

After the tour, and for the remainder of my stay in Chicago, I would look a the different buildings and think to myself "Hmm...that does have interesting architecture..." Chicago does in fact have a lot of interesting architecture and history, and I would highly recommend looking up at all the different buildings the city has to display.

Chicago style pizza

No trip to Chicago would be complete without having eaten Chicago style pizza. One of the most well known establishments is called Giordano's, and that's where I've always eaten my pizza in Chicago.
We got there around 1pm on Saturday, and the wait was 45 minutes. So Mikey put our names in, and we decided to order a medium spinach stuffed pizza. Let me just say, that a slice of Chicago style pizza is like eating 4 regular slices of pizza, but infinitely more satisfying. There is a lot of cheese, but it is not overwhelmingly heavy or greasy. There is a lot of fresh spinach, but not so much that it no longer resembles or tastes like a pizza. The sauce is perfect. The crust is crunchy and crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. And the whole combination is so good that the law of diminishing returns does not kick in til the slice is gone. Each bite is better than the last...until that is you decide to go for your second slice...because by then, you are full, but it is sooooooo good!

Chicago - 21/22 April 2007

I decided to visit my good friend Mikey Schubmehl and Shelley Chen and her boyfriend Pablo in Chicago. It cost me $258 to fly halfway across the country...but it costs me $218 to fly to San Francisco, so I figure why not go to Chicago and visit some good friends! And while I'm there, let's go to the Cubs/Cardinals series at Wrigley!
So I decided to fly out on a red eye to Chicago on the night of the 20th, landed at around 4:45am Chicago time on the 21st, took a taxi to downtown Chicago to Mikey's condo, the doorman let me in, and I broke into his apartment and I proceeded to fall asleep on the air mattress that Mikey provided.
So the plan was to meet up with Shelley and Pablo, and then all of us would go to the Cubs game the following day.