Chicago, Illinois

Dec 20 - Dec 28, 2000

 Our Travel Experience

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Our Travel Experience

This was our third stop on our "home for the holidays tour". We planned to spend just over one week in Chicago - most of the time at Tara's Ma's house and some time downtown Chicago seeing friends.

Our introduction to Chicago was harsh after spending three weeks in Chicago. Tara did make it harder on us actually since she had reserved a cheap car downtown Chicago - at a location that closed in just over an hour from when we arrived at Midway airport. Seth remarked as we were in the shuttle bus that he hadn't been relaxed at all since landing at Chicago.

We did make it to the rental company about 5 minutes before they closed, so we got to surprise our friends Jeff & Grace by picking Jeff up from his flight into O'Hare. Grace is over 9 months pregnant, so we were really happy we could help. We also got to thinking about how in Chicago we have a vast number of friends who are friends into whose lives we can just "show up".
We were not sure that we could pick Jeff up - ie. if our flight had been late, if the Chicago traffic was bad, etc. etc., so we didn't tell Grace or Jeff that we hoped to pick Jeff up. I actually called Grace at home about an hour before Jeff was scheduled to land and asked her to confirm that Jeff was indeed on a United flight coming from Las Vegas. Same with Jeff, he had no idea we'd be waiting for him when he disembarked. It is neat to have "don't have to plan ahead" friends!!

We spent a few days at my Mom's before heading into the city for a Friday night get-together that we'd planned. It was very enjoyable to be at my Ma's house (even with the 2 feet of snow outside). We went out a bit shopping, but mainly we stayed inside and read or looked through all the stuff we'd left at her house in January. We had left ALOT behind the night before we got on the plane flight that started our World Tour.

On Friday we headed downtown for Tara's dentist appointment.

memories:
- how long it took to get adjoining rooms
- the horrible traffic and stupid drivers between downtown and Lincoln Park
- Seth turning in the rental car keys with the safety deposit box key on the rental car keyring
- Poth, Denise, Lisa & Gary
- shopping in the morning and realizing there was NOTHING we needed to buy
- lunchtime of leftover pizza in the lounge & speaking with the German receptionist
- Seeing Jeff & Kristen
- Going to bfast with Mike & Dasha
- taking the train back out to my Ma's
- George's Christmas dinner
- Family Christmas party
- a few more relaxing days before leaving for Seth's parents
- not getting to see Pat & Ginny
- Steak dinner at Marty & Michelle's with another couple. The Nicolas Cage car stealing movie (gone in 60 seconds) + the OTHER movie and the deer video in the backyard
- Visiting Bruce & Elena and meeting their daughter Mary Elizabeth
- Catching up with Nancy REALLY quickly.
- Mad frantic rush to leave.
 
 


 
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Pamler House Hilton


 

B& B suggestion from Grace is fountainhead - german couple runs it on Maui.