Girl and City

On Sunday, while I was out shopping for a money belt, BI texted me the following in three separate messages:
Two things.
I miss you.
Where’s a good place for brunch in The City?

When I received the first two messages, I thought she was drunk-texting me. I have never been drunk-texted by a girl, much less on Sunday morning, so I was quite amused.
The Drake Hotel, I texted back.
She asked if I could join her for brunch.
I am with some guys from last night but they are leaving, she said.
I raised an eyebrow but only texted back, No problem.

Two hours later, CMA and I arrived at The Drake Hotel (I invited CMA at the last minute because she was a classmate of ours that had just moved to The City and I knew she was dying for me to take her to The Drake, or anywhere for that matter). I spotted BI immediately, lounging with – not one, not two – but four guys on the couches by the window. (more…)

Yesterday, The Business School threw a banquet for the graduating class of 2010 (that’s me!) and it was awesome.
Normally, I’m not into banquets and such because they’re boring, the food is bad, and I hate having to make small talk to fill the time. But this was basically the last hurrah for my Business School peers and I, and I was going to make the most of it.

We started drinking at 4pm at one of my classmate’s house, because obviously by now we are alcoholics and need to have a pre-drink before every single conceivable event. The weather was beautiful and we took tons of prom-esque pictures on his patio. I tried to be in as many pictures as possible because I had spent hours curling my hair¹, and obviously everyone needed a reminder of my beautiful face in their photo albums.
It was so great to see my old classmates all together again², and everyone looked beautiful in their suits and dresses. Despite the fact that I would not consider most of these people my best friends, even feeling like an outsider at times, I know I won’t see some of these people ever again, and certainly not all together like this, so I tried to savour every moment. It was an afternoon spent in the sun, toasting to our youth, congratulating ourselves on surviving Business School, and anticipating what’s to come. (more…)

1. The process of getting my hair to curl (and stay curled) was a Herculean task. I’ve only used a curling iron once before, when I was 18, so I burned myself several times in the process. [↩]
2. Last year, we all had the same classes together as a ‘section’, but the sections got split up this year. [↩]

I was exhausted by the time we arrived back at the hotel just past midnight on Friday, considering I had been awake since 5 am. However, the next day, I somehow still managed to wake up at 6am without an alarm. So I went for a jog in Grant Park and watched the sun rise over Buckingham Fountain¹.

We had breakfast at a typical breakfast chain near our hotel, Yolk. It was literally bursting with people. It was as if the entire population of Chicago was at there for breakfast that morning. We were seated at the bar and could not stop staring in awe at the absolute chaos of the place. It was complete sensory overload, the sight of the people and the plates of food whizzing by, the sound of the clattering of dishes and the barking of instructions from the kitchen, the smell of eggs and pancakes and coffee and toast, and eventually when the food came, the taste of a big hearty breakfast.
American portion sizes are absolutely enormous, I have never seen anything like it. A $12 breakfast had enough food to feed a small army. Despite my disproportionately large appetite, most of the food went to waste. To be honest, I would have much rather preferred a reasonable-sized breakfast for $5 or $6, but apparently things don’t work like that in America.

(more…)

1. Yes, BI thinks my lack of sleep requirements and abundance of energy makes me inhuman. I slept no more than 6 hours on any of the nights during this trip, and this was me trying to have a relaxing vacation. I was up for 19 hours on Friday, including swimming and being on my feet all day, and I was up at 6am on Saturday, went for a jog, and kept on my feet until 2am. Maybe I am a robot. [↩]

On Friday, the weather was unbelievably gorgeous. BI and I both took advantage of the opportunity to finally show our legs, which have been hibernating all winter¹. We both picked colourful dresses, and as a result, got checked out by just about everyone as we walked down the street. Clearly, Chicago was not New York, and fashion was not on the top of their mind.

We started off the day with a walking tour of historic skyscrapers around The Loop.

(more…)

1. Did I mention that BI has seriously great legs? [↩]

…with no GPS and no map.

The end of my Business School journey began with a road trip to Chicago. The day was not the smoothest. My very last class turned out to be a mini-exam, which I had completely forgotten about. You can imagine how that went. Then BI showed up in our rental car an hour late due to technical difficulties. On the bright side, our rental card was not one of: GM, Ford, Chevrolet, or Toyota, the four brands that I now refuse to drive. It was a white Mitsubishi, and so far in my experience with rental cars, it’s the best car I’ve driven. Plus I have inexplicable good feelings towards white cars (a.k.a. love).

We were only armed with a set of instructions from Google Maps (but no actual map) and had no GPS. We were lost before we even left University Town. We couldn’t find the highway. Our male counterparts would mock us to death if they knew. Since we were both girls, we pulled into a gas station at an intersection and asked for directions. It turned out the highway was literally half a second down the road. and the gas station attendant thought our question was some sort of bad April fool’s joke. I wish it was.

It didn’t take us long to reach the border, but hilarity ensued at U.S. customs.
“Where are you going?” The customs officer asked us. I’m used to American customs officers looking grim and unsmiling, but this one looked downright angry.
“Chicago,” we both said with a grin.
“What are you going to Chicago for?” He asked, unamused.
“Just for fun.” Apparently ‘just for fun’ was not on the list of acceptable responses. The customs officer did not look like he understood ‘fun.’
“Where are you going in Chicago?” He finally asked in a monotone.
“What do you mean? We’re going to be hanging out in downtown Chicago.” Apparently ‘hanging out’ was also not on the list of acceptable responses.
“What do you have in your trunk?”
“Our stuff.” We were clearly not the most articulate pair.
“Are you planning to leave any of ‘your stuff’ in the U.S.?”
“Huh? Why would we leave our stuff in the U.S.?”
The customs officer looked like he wanted to eat us, but he finally let us through.

In hindsight, if I had given standard responses like “vacation”, “clothes,” and “no,” we would have gotten through much faster. For two very smart girls, we can be incredibly airheaded sometimes.

After we were in Detroit, our instructions told us to go off the highway in search of another highway that would eventually lead us back to the highway we were driving on. We didn’t read far enough down the instructions to realize this, so we followed the instructions and got off the highway. And, you guessed it, we were lost.
We gave up on trying to follow the instructions and headed back. The detour cost us almost an hour, but at least we were heading in the right direction again. At this point, we decided to ignore Google’s instructions and just head west. All roads must lead to Chicago, right?

We pulled into a McDonald’s for dinner (because apparently there are no other options along a highway that crosses three states), and this is when we realized how Canadian we were.
First of all, there are no vegetarian options in the McDonald’s here. Salad comes with cheese, and we’re both lactose intolerant. Second of all, the serving sizes are massive. Third of all, there are no washrooms in the U.S.. There are restrooms.
We had almost nothing for dinner and instead, returned to the car to munch on our baby carrots and freshly cut bellpeppers. Nom nom.

Also, toll booths suck. Seriously, what’s with that? Stopping highway traffic every couple miles to throw in a few bucks? For a country that’s focused on productivity and efficiency, they should really rethink their toll booth system. Oh, and we also realized we were Canadian when we were scrounging to come up with 50 cents USD.

We didn’t make it to the city until past 10pm, but it was worth it. Chicago looks beautiful at night.

This morning, I woke up at 5am because I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I was too excited. I went for a stroll outside and watched the sun rise behind Buckingham Fountain. It wasn’t quite as breathtaking as watching the sun rise from the San Francisco boardwalk, but watching the sun rise in a different city is always exhilarating. Watching a city wake up in the early hours of the dawn is an experience for the senses, and my favourite thing to do as a tourist¹.
Whoever said that Chicago is like the Toronto of the mid-west was wrong. Chicago is much more beautiful. I haven’t seen anything yet and I already notice why this city is known for its architecture, art, and music. The Californian coast might have been more breathtaking during sunrise, but the Chicago city itself is much nicer, with its parks and wide pedestrian lanes and old-fashioned architecture and boutique music shops.
I can already feel myself falling in love with Chicago.

1. I don’t actually plan to do it, but it seems whenever I go to a new city, I can never sleep. I am such a morning person that this ends up as my “thing” as a tourist. [↩]