Sheeeeeecaaaaago

Jack and I did the Chicago tourist gig this weekend. First stop on Friday night was the White Sox game:It was "Healthcare night" at US Cellular Field and St. Fozzie's received a special shout-out. Some of the commercial breaks featured healthcare-related entertainment. What really shocked us when we arrived was that lots of folks were wearing green....and had green and white Sox hats on. It looked suspiciously Irish and sure enough, it was "Half-way to St. Patty's Day" at the park. The team wore green and white uniforms, an Irish quartet sang the National Anthem (ours, not Ireland's), and the park offered Guinness and green beer on tap. The commercial breaks that didn't feature healthcare stuff featured Irish music and scenes from Braveheart! It was a nice coincidence for me, working in healthcare and being a fan of all things Irish.

On Saturday, we both worked for several hours (work no longer stops on the weekends) and we took the train downtown. I kept having to check my phone for the status of the ND game; when we disembarked the train, ND was up 33 to 30 and we prayed they wouldn't blow it in the final seconds. Anyway, we had reservations at 8pm, so we wandered down Michigan Ave. We wanted to go up to Signature Lounge (96th floor of the Hancock) for sunset, but there was an hour long wait just to get to the elevator. We ducked out of the line and wandered over to Rush Street. They have some great piano bars and we especially liked one called "Jilly's." Dinner at Trader Vic's was out of this world...but we weren't ready to go home yet.

So we walked a couple streets over, back to the Hancock building. Since we had full bellies, we didn't mind the waiting...but the line was much shorter and within 5 minutes, we were on the elevator. The elevator ride was about 30 seconds and I distinctly remember having to swallow five times to clear the pressure from my ears. The view was worth the wait and every pop of my ear drum: Actually, this was the view from the ladies' room (hence the glare). This was the view from our seats, at a little bar along the window:We sat at our little bar seats for about 20 minutes, savoring the view and dreaming. There's supposed to be a two-drink minimum at the Lounge, but they were so busy, no one came to extract the dollars from us. Satisfied with our 20 minutes, we simply took the elevator down and no one was the wiser.

Because Millennium Station is a bit of a walk, we opted to walk back to that vicinity and visit an cute Irish club called Gage. It was much closer to the train depot, so we didn't have to rush. Over a round of ultra-specialized brewski's, we reflected on our night in town and how much fun it was. I'm not apartment-hunting in the city yet, but I feel so grateful to have Chicago in my backyard.