Breezy

Breezy, that's the word the weatherman in chicago describes 30mph with gusts to 45. I was there from thursday through sunday. No riding for 4 days. I did a lot of walking, and stairclimbing. Our hotel had 40 levels to climb. I had 320 miles in the 5 days leading up to the trip. I could have rented a bike, $40/4 hours, but the breezy conditions in chicago did not push hard enough. Renting a tandem would have been fun too, had it been 20d warmer and the dr. did not have class 6 hours a day.

I've never been to chicago. I've been through Illinois a few times, just not in chicago. One thing for sure I know is, Yuppies are everywhere. It disgusts me. Gross. Not only did we almost loose my hearing to these socialmongers, it drove me south. So far south that the closest restaurant was a mile walk in 30degrees from the train. I didn't mind, my date did. We made it to Pleasant House, ate some good pie, the spinach was soso, the chicken was really good. Kind of small portion for $7.5/ea, but worth it, especially after a walk like this. I don't think you could have spotted a yuppie for a mile. Finally some peace.

Pleasant House is byob, the liquor store next to it had an amazing selection of heavey beer, I think maybe 10 fridges that held all the micro stuff, and 1 fridge that had some miller and bud. There was also a happening bar through the joint, which interested me, but we didn't go in. The liquor store had a $20 min. for credit card charges, I had 5 one dollar bills so we stayed dry for this place.


Chicago is a pretty easy place to be as far as we could see. Trains or buses went wherever you wanted. Our maps application on our evo phone was quick to tell us which bus/train stops were needed to get to any location. $14 for all you can ride 3 day pass.

I preferred riding the bus, it goes slower, more stops, and you see more of the city.

We took the bus all the way from south bridgeport to Lincoln Park. There are quite a few places that are good up there. Funny thing about Chicago, when I say its easy place to be, I mean, there aren't waits anywhere. We seriously walked into 11 different restaurants between 7 and 9pm on thurs/fri/sat. and were seated immediately.


First place we ate at was a little south of downtown. I didn't think fries and pizza went together, this place made it happen. 1 slice of pizza was about the size of 1/2 of a mccoy's whole pie. Huge. 1 slice, fries, soda, $5! That's better than subways deal right now! (We did eat there twice.)

Yuppie scale, 1.

Dinner thursday night was at goose island brewery. We were just walking around Uptown and saw the place. Went in and sat down. Kind of underwhelming experience. The food was good, beer was good, just good.
Yuppie scale, 5.



FEAST is a true yuppie paradise. If you didn't walk out of there with a gun to your head after an hour of not hearing the person next to you then well, you may be a yuppie. There's a 98% chance you are if you were there. About 5 minutes in to being seated, looking around there were 111 people there, 107 were between the age of 31 and 38 wearing shoes costing more than than all my clothing combined. Then there was me and the dr. and two old people eating with a younger couple, you guessed it, yuppies.

Food was great here, its not super expensive. Service was exceptional. Portions were large, good value for yuppies, just bring some ear plugs if you haven't experienced the sound of 100 mouths battling for what they assume is their ascribed status.

Pizza was $9, its was really good, and pretty big. Free bread here too. Yuppie scale, 10.

Intelligentisa coffee. Its really good. Like what we have at Union Station in Parisi only its in chicago. If you want the best cup, go here. Yuppie scale, 3.

Filter Coffee. Absolutely the best place to take your laptop, headphones, and waste an entire afternoon drinking coffee. Lots of choices for food, good prices on coffee, good tea too. Really comfortable setting, lots of couches, totally cool to put your feet up. Yuppie scale 2.

Pasta bowl. Want pasta? Look no further. Food is cooked right in front of you at the bar. All the sauces are made to order, same with noodles. We had the special, it was salmon with green pasta and asparagus. $10.50. Something very comforting about chicago, you sit down, you order, you aren't ignored, you get food fast, cooked right in front of you.
Yuppie scale. 4

There are some byob sushi places on Clark st. I believe we were here. Not 100% sure though. Sushi was good. No corkage fee on the big bottle of IPA either. Liquor store is just a few shops down. Yuppie scale, 7.

Groceries aren't hard to find downtown either. At almost all the stops there were aldi stores and a few trader joe's. We bought granola/yogurt/blackberries from trader joe's since our hotel didn't have breakfast. Cost $8. Breakfast for 3 days for two. There $3.99 Argentine screw top bottle wasn't bad either.