and damn, there’s nothing better than after having spent a weekend in a hot, humid, public transportation-going city than to have your buddy pick you up from lax at 1am in his convertable and blast down the 405 in the cool night air (thanks eric <3)

i flew into o’hare on saturday morning, after a really crappy flight on jet blue. i got a middle seat between two fat women, my little tv screen was broken and my tray table wouldn’t stay straight. so #1 lesson: fuck jet blue. taka met me at the airport, we checked into our hotel (the embassy suites rule! they had an open bar from 5-7:30p every day for guests so we got plastered) and headed to the row of pubs around wrigley field. lots of good beer and food around that area and the people were super friendly.

it turns out that the reason that flights and hotel rooms were scarce/expensive (more on this in a moment) was because there was a USA vs. Mexico soccer game and a huge gay pride festival on sunday. anyway, 3 different waitresses we talked to on saturday said that the thing to do on sunday was the gay pride festival so that’s where we ended up on sunday. turns out it’s a pretty big event with floats sponsored by nbc and bank of america, and lots of gay dudes dancing and chicks flashing their boobs. we actually ran into some of taka’s classmates as we were walking down the streets drinking booze (which you can do there!)

afterwards we walked around the park and out to the beach to check out lake michigan, which seems as expanse as the ocean. we finally made our way back to our hotel (as good as their public transportation system is, it still takes forever to get anywhere), just in time for the last few rounds of the open bar at our hotel. by the time they closed up, we didn’t have the wherewithal to find a place to eat, so we clumsily had dinner at the hotel’s restraunt and called it an early evening.

on monday morning we headed into downtown to do some more touristy stuff… we ate chicago dogs and chicago pizza at some pretty authentic looking joints, and went to the oberservation deck of the sears tower. i come to find that the sears tower has been the tallest building in the united states since 1973. for some reason i had thought the wtc towers were taller. you can actually feel the building swaying which is a little freaky.

so yeh, everything about the trip was great, except for the flights. my return flight was supposed to leave at 5pm, but because of everyone that flew in for the weekend parade and soccer match, all the flights were overbooked, and poor me was flying standby. after 3 hours of standing inline with bitchy customer service and 3 missed flights, i finally got on the last damn flight outta ORD at 10:25p. so #2 lesson: fuck o’hare airport.

lots of pics when i find my card reader :)