July 2nd, 2001

I'm rather curious to see Chicago, especially after my first experience in the South Side which, I've been told, I'm lucky to have gotten out of in one piece.

Entrance into the city is accomplished via train, it appears as though Chicago has a rather extensive and well run mass transit system. One of the train lines runs up into Libertyville and into numerous other suburb areas north of Chicago. The train station for it is only 5 minutes away from Pam and Jock's place. After some morning preparation Pam and Jock drive us to the train station and we await the "Metra", as the trains are called. I guess once they get into the city they're called "The L" or something. Anyways...

I've noticed over the past few days that keeping a steady pace in keeping my website updated has become somewhat difficult. You've probably noticed the backlog that's starting to build in delayed entries. Not sure what exactly the problem is... it's starting to feel more like work than a diversion on my trip. I guess in one way it's irritating because is draws from time I could be spending doing something else. Maybe I just need to adjust my attitude some.

The train ride to Chicago from Libertyville takes a little over an hour... which probably about halves how long it would take to drive in with all the traffic in the city and all.

During our visit there is a festival of sorts going on in downtown Chicago called Taste of Chicago. From what I understand, over the course of about 10 days over 3 million people will enter the city and take part in it. Going by its name, you can probably guess what the festival is about: Food. Lots and lots of food. Originally Alie and I were going to hit the taste and then meet up with Molly and Tuyen... but it's funny how things work out.

Upon arriving at the city we exit the Metra train in Chicago's Union Station... this mammoth train station that, from the looks of it, damn near all of Chicago's rail based transit system flows in and out of. From there we take a water taxi up to Navy Pier, and begin walking around.

Pam and Jock gave us a rather nice tourist map with all the major stuff in the city listed and its location(we still have that map! E-mail me your address and I'll send it back to you!). However we still managed to end up walking away from The Taste and, quite accidentally, end up running into the Hancock Building. This is significant because in the bottom of this building is a restaraunt that Chris(Chris in Fresno, Hi Chris!) had been raving about the whole time we were visiting him... called The Cheesecake Factory.

This place is nuts. I don't think I've ever seen a menu quite like this before... they make damn near ANYTHING you can think of. And they sell a ton of different kinds of cheesecake, hence the name. Looking at other people's plates, you can tell that the portions are enormous. After a 20 minute wait I order something called "The Mile High Meatloaf Sandwich". It lives up to its name, as you can see by the picture(the fork is the level it was at before I squished it down to eat it).

They have this thing about painting benches all crazy like here.	An artist working on one of said benches...
	Under the table and dreaming...

From there we hop a trolley and meet up with Molly and Tuyen at Navy Pier. Navy Pier is a lot of different things... they have shops there you can buy all sorts of eclectic things from, there's an IMAX theatre there, some weird 3D travel through time ride, some amusement park rides, a beer garden, pay telescopes to sightsee with.

Up and down the pier are various large pieces of art. We spend most of the rest of the afternoon there bumming around.

Time is a train...	Makes the future the past...	Leaves you standing in the station...
Your face pressed up against the glass...

Afterwards we take the L Train over to Tuyen's house for a while so he can pick up his car to take us to dinner at this restaraunt called Ranalli's, in Lincoln Park. We have another obscenely large meal, this time of pizza, seafood and some sort of calzone thingus exclusive to that particular restaraunt. But damn are they good! :)

When dinner is completed Tuyen takes us back to Union Station where we hop the Metra and head back to Libertyville. Apparently tommorrow Chicago will be doing their fireworks display... so we'll be heading back into the city once again...