Chicago

This past weekend I took advantage of having finished my second paper and took a train to Chicago. With the exception of tickets to the events I wanted to attend, I figure I did the whole trip for less than a hundred bucks. The roundtrip train fare was $18, hostel was $34, unlimited public transit was $9, and I ate cheap.

I got in around noon, and after checking into my hostel I went to Taste of Chicago, which is this annual event where over 60 Chicago restaurants set up tents and feed people. Hundreds of thousands of people go.

That afternoon I caught my first major league baseball game--the Cubs against the Nationals at Wrigley Field. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a big follower of professional baseball. But I've always been intrigued with the mystique of Wrigley Field. It is an enchanting place, what with the ivy that covers the outfield wall, the edgy fans, and the general excitement of the place. I loved it.

That night I went to a little hole-in-the-wall blues joint called Rosa's Lounge, which was established by first-generation Italian immigrants. I listened to Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials, a local group who have been playing for something like twenty years, and they tore it up. Lil' Ed becam bigger than life! The lounge is on the west side of Chicago, which isn't exactly the safest place for a Midwestern white boy at 1:00 in the morning. After some tense moments of waiting for a northbound bus, another guy and I grabbed the first one to come, a southbound bus, and I punted. I asked the busdriver a bunch of questions to figure out how to transfer to a train that would take me into the loop (downtown). As we went into south Chicago, I couldn't help but notice I was the only white guy around, which made feel like I had a huge target on my chest with a message that read, "Look here, look here! Honky-ass mofo lookin' for a muggin'!" But a very nice young African-American lady must have seen my trepidation because she walked with me to the train and talked with me until her train showed up. We talked about the weird monitors on the platform, where I was from, how long it took to do her hair (she was coming back from the salon), and so on. Getting onto the train, she looked back and smiled, "You have a nice visit here in Chicago, okay?"

The next morning I slept in and went to All Saints Church of Starbucks and then headed over to the Pentecostal Flavah of Dunkin' Donuts. Talk about heaven. Mm-mmmm. I caught a matinee of Red Light Winter at Steppenwolf, the theater John Malkovich and Gary Sinese made famous. Wonderful show. Depressing, but still wonderful. In fact, I wrote this to the company after I got back here to Notre Dame: "Dear Steppenwolf, Just wanted to pass on my appreciation for this past Sunday's matinee of Red Light Winter. Somebody said, 'Writing is simple. All you do is sit down and open a vein,' which is to say it's not simple at all. Watching the show, I felt like the artists opened a vein. There was something vulnerable in their performance that invited the world in, something welcoming, and even though this was an invitation to an experience of pain, I was thankful for it. I was especially intrigued with the end, which seemed more of a breakthrough into new possibilities than a closure. Fascinating. The dialogue was as well executed as I've ever seen and kept me in wrapt attention the whole way through. Needless to say, I dug it. Thank you, all of you, for your work."

A two-hour train trip home in the evening after a great apple walnut salad at this cafeteria-style joint on Michigan Ave across from Millennium Park, and I was back at the U. A great trip all around. I feel very fortunate to be able to do this sort of thing.