MY KIND OF TOWN - PART ONE



Chicago is........

 

 

Where do I start? Trip of a lifetime as far as I'm concerned. (until the next trip of a lifetime that is!) How do you talk about something so amazing that you are in awe of each day that passes. Okay I'm going to start with a few of the things that didn't go right before we even took off and get those uglies out of the way.

 

So maybe a day or two before we left I had a "shit....OMG I can't believe I just did that moment!" I was plucking my eyebrows and then sometimes I use one of those little pencil shaped trimmers with the small two sided comb attachment with a long and short side. You have probably guessed where I am going with this one. Some of my eyebrow hairs can get really long so I will go over them with the long sided trimmer only that didn't happen, I mistakenly used the short side and didn't notice until the second eyebrow. (#$%@)

 

I tried very hard not to panic, I knew I couldn't go back. They were just very short, not shaved off completely. So I made sure I had wispy bangs and played around with different eyebrow pencils. I never told anyone and no one asked about them. I thought for sure my daughter would say "What happened to your eyebrows?" Enough said.

 

First we started out by trying to make our reservations for the hotel in Arlington Heights and they said they were booked, no rooms available. Well I emailed my future SIL and told her. They got on the phone and raised a fit and eventually that got all worked out. Then Mark went to make the reservation for our car rental and he needed the flight number we were on. Well guess what, they cancelled our flights back in August and never told us, never sent him an email yet he had a confirmation number. Well luckily it all got worked out and we were able to get onto the same flights on Monday the 10th of September.

 

So we go to the airport very early for our flight to Denver, then onto Chicago O'Hare. So it's like 5:30 am and we are waiting to board our first flight and Mark got a text saying our second flight out of Denver was cancelled. So he went up to the desk to see what he could do. Well they automatically moved Mark to a 1:20pm flight and me to an 8pm flight! They did give us $40. in vouchers for food and I spent everything but 60 cents. I wasn't letting that one go. Anyway when we arrived in Denver it all got straightened out and I was able to join Mark on the 1:20pm flight. Hooray! We only had four hours to waste and I didn't have to wait 11 hours for my next flight.

 

So we arrived in Chicago, got the car and checked into the hotel. Then we searched for the closest location of a few of our favorite pizza places and headed out to dinner. It was so funny, Mark commented and I agree with him "It seems like on every corner there is some great Italian food we want to eat." We went to Aurelio's which is by far one of our most favorite thin crust Chicago pizza and had a few glasses of wine. It was a long day.

 

One Tuesday Mark had a sales call in Lisle, IL and I relaxed a bit, went to the pool and got ready for our dinner date with Diane and Larry our BFF's from H.S. Due to a previous scheduled appointment Larry was not able to join us. We spent a few hours with Diane and it was a perfect, actually more than perfect evening. Your can read about Diane and Larry and the amazing things that happen on our trip to Chicago at my For Your Tears post called The Depth of Friendship. I shared this on my post the other day.

 

On Wednesday morning we got up early and headed to Wisconsin. Mark had a sales call in Oshkosh which was about 3 hours away but along the way he dropped me off in Milwaukee so I could spend some time with my brother. I had four hours with him and it was perfect. He showed me around the city, we had lunch and then he took me to one of his favorite gay bars where we had a glass of wine. It was so nice to see him. I believe the last time I saw my brother was in Florida a few years ago when we both visited my dad. (That is a statue of Fonzie. I am showing you him from the back since the front had been tagged)

 

 Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

On the way home from Milwaukee we made a little stop at a White Castle. I had one little burger. Yes I cheated on my diet and I'm okay with that. Then we got back to the hotel and had about an hour before we were being picked up from the bride and groom to be. (Jimmy and Caprice) Mark's other brother Jeff was also in town on business and we all went to Lou Malnati's for a late dinner. I didn't get a picture of their pizza. That is the pizza we order from Taste of Chicago. We had never had it in person before. Actually Jimmy and Caprice send us that for a family gift each Christmas. It was so awesome and because of my low carb I did only eat the top but had one small bite of crust because I just had to! That was one long day. (The deep dish pizza is from Gino's which we went to on Thursday.....more to come later.)

 

Favorite treats from Chicago



 

So I want to end part one on this note:

 

Happy Birthday to my brother Raymond

who is 66 years old today!

Love you so much.

 

PART TWO

PART THREE