Well, despite some setbacks, I had a very nice trip to Chicago to see
rowdycamels and buy some skates.
( Setbacks, for the curious )
Anyway, enough about those. Good things! I had a fabulous experience at Rainbo Sports out in Glenview, despite it being a bit of an odyssey to reach from Chicago proper. But hey, at least trains and busses actually go out that far!
One of the skate shop gurus and I mutually decided to put me in the Jackson Premiere boots, which were exactly the ones my research had suggested would be best. ( Technical details about the skates and the experience )
By fortunate coincidence, Open House Chicago was this weekend, so we did as much of that as possible. On the Loyola campus, we went to the Art Deco chapel (kind of bizarrely concrete and Communist) and Art Deco skyscraper (much cooler and prettier), and downtown we went to the Fine Arts Building and the Sky-line club. The latter was somewhat disappointing--the view was okay but not great, and other than it was just a rich people's club, which was interesting for a few seconds but no more--but the Fine Arts Building was fun. It's another lovely building, Victorian this time, and going on stage was lovely, as was visiting the luthier's workshop and seeing stringed instruments in various stages of completion. The building has a bunch of artists' studios and rooms where music teachers give lessons, so those were fun to peek into as well.
We also went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, in large part because it was cold and raining out and it's tropical in there, and got to see the greenhouses that aren't normally open to the public. Once it stopped raining, we went to the zoo, where the male lion put on a show. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to eat the small children staring at him through the glass, taunting him with their tender deliciousness.
Because I am nothing if not adealer enabler, I brought along my China Beach DVDs, and we took a tour through some of the best episodes during the evenings. I'm pretty sure I have a convert, muahahaha.
We had some very good meals this weekend, too. To continue the Vietnamese theme begun with China Beach, we ordered in Vietnamese one night, and I got to try pho for the first time. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE? Man, that's good. It was also the most interesting delivery meal I've ever had. I got a quart-sized plastic barrel of beef broth with delicious, delicious spices; a Chinese takeout box of rice noodles, beef, and two different kinds of onions; and a ziploc bag of bean sprouts, mint leaves, jalapeno slices, and a couple of lime wedges. Make your own meal! Needless to say, I had pho for three days straight and there was still some left over when I left.
I had delicious gyros from two different places, including one...Egyptian fast food place? downtown called Naf Naf Grill, which had the most amazing garlic tzatziki sauce. I think I was unconsciously trying to rebuild my iron levels after the massive blood loss with all the red meat this weekend. (ETA: Not that it worked...)
Good trip! Would do again without cough syrup-splosions, bronchitis, and hemorrhaging!
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
( Setbacks, for the curious )
Anyway, enough about those. Good things! I had a fabulous experience at Rainbo Sports out in Glenview, despite it being a bit of an odyssey to reach from Chicago proper. But hey, at least trains and busses actually go out that far!
One of the skate shop gurus and I mutually decided to put me in the Jackson Premiere boots, which were exactly the ones my research had suggested would be best. ( Technical details about the skates and the experience )
By fortunate coincidence, Open House Chicago was this weekend, so we did as much of that as possible. On the Loyola campus, we went to the Art Deco chapel (kind of bizarrely concrete and Communist) and Art Deco skyscraper (much cooler and prettier), and downtown we went to the Fine Arts Building and the Sky-line club. The latter was somewhat disappointing--the view was okay but not great, and other than it was just a rich people's club, which was interesting for a few seconds but no more--but the Fine Arts Building was fun. It's another lovely building, Victorian this time, and going on stage was lovely, as was visiting the luthier's workshop and seeing stringed instruments in various stages of completion. The building has a bunch of artists' studios and rooms where music teachers give lessons, so those were fun to peek into as well.
We also went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, in large part because it was cold and raining out and it's tropical in there, and got to see the greenhouses that aren't normally open to the public. Once it stopped raining, we went to the zoo, where the male lion put on a show. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to eat the small children staring at him through the glass, taunting him with their tender deliciousness.
Because I am nothing if not a
We had some very good meals this weekend, too. To continue the Vietnamese theme begun with China Beach, we ordered in Vietnamese one night, and I got to try pho for the first time. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE? Man, that's good. It was also the most interesting delivery meal I've ever had. I got a quart-sized plastic barrel of beef broth with delicious, delicious spices; a Chinese takeout box of rice noodles, beef, and two different kinds of onions; and a ziploc bag of bean sprouts, mint leaves, jalapeno slices, and a couple of lime wedges. Make your own meal! Needless to say, I had pho for three days straight and there was still some left over when I left.
I had delicious gyros from two different places, including one...Egyptian fast food place? downtown called Naf Naf Grill, which had the most amazing garlic tzatziki sauce. I think I was unconsciously trying to rebuild my iron levels after the massive blood loss with all the red meat this weekend. (ETA: Not that it worked...)
Good trip! Would do again without cough syrup-splosions, bronchitis, and hemorrhaging!