I booked a late-morning flight on Delta for Tuesday morning. I have decided to stick to Delta when traveling for work as much as possible. Delta tends to not be the cheapest (and money is no object when it comes to these work trips), but they do seem to have the best time options, and I really want to start building up my Frequent Flyer Skymiles points, so thought with all the travel I have coming up for the tour, I should stay consistent with the airline.
I arrived in Chicago early Tuesday afternoon at O'Hare, met up with my driver and headed for the Sax Chicago where I'd be staying. Although there was apparently a Cubs game later that afternoon, there was not yet much traffic so the drive to the hotel was only around 30 minutes. When I arrived at the Sax, I hadn't even stepped out of the car when a hotel employee was greeting me with my check-in packet and room keys and grabbing my bag to take up to my room. Now that's service! By this point I was starving, so I quickly dropped my things off in the room then decided to wander and see if I could find somewhere to eat. The area the hotel was in turned out to be a very nice area with no shortage of bars and restaurants. This made me very happy, as I would not have to leave the little bubble around the hotel to do anything. I took a quick walk across the North Dearborn Street Bridge right outside the hotel over to the venue, the Chicago Theatre, to pop inside and say hi to the crew that was already putting together the stage for our show the next day (I was very excited to see that the venue was only a block and a half over the bridge from the hotel!).
The Chicago Theatre is on the national register of historic places, and it is just as beautiful inside as you would think a theatre on that list would be! The theatre had a beautiful dome with murals painted in it and all gilded in gold. There were gorgeous chandeliers hanging throughout the lobby and showroom.
By the time I left the venue, I was desperate to find a place to eat, so just walked a few more blocks until I found a restaurant with sidewalk seating, the Rockit Bar and Grill (it was a beautiful, sunny day in the mid-70s, so sitting outside hit the spot!). I ordered a salad, the BBQ pork sliders and a glass of wine. The food was delicious, and something about sitting out in the warm sun with my glass of wine watching people on the street was so relaxing that I could have sat there all afternoon! I did want to walk around a little bit before the sun went down, so after I finished up my late lunch, I made my way toward Millennium Park on foot, using the map on my phone as a reference, but generally wandering aimlessly. I somehow found myself in a more residential area that was quiet and peaceful compared to the areas I had just walked through. This is definitely where some of the wealthier people in the city were living, and I saw lots of families with little kids walking through the fountains and park down the hill from the condos. I thought about heading over to Navy Pier, but I wasn't in the mood for a Ferris wheel or cotton candy, so I thought it might not be worth the walk and made my way back to the hotel.
Millennium Park:
I checked in with the concierge to see if they had any ideas about where I could go to get a Chicago magnet and then followed their directions to the nearest drugstore, where I found the perfect magnet - a replica of the Chicago Theatre! By this point, people were getting off work and meeting up at all the restaurants in the area, so I decided it was time to get back to the hotel and order myself some room service. While I had hoped I might find somewhere to grab food while I was out on the magnet run, I decided I didn't feel like sitting in a restaurant eating dinner by myself, so I let the giant Caesar salad in the room solve the problem.
The next morning, the sky was unfortunately overcast and it looked like it might rain all day. I had a little time to kill before I needed to report to the venue, so once again took the concierge's recommendation on a "diner" type place where I could get a wide variety of things (I wasn't quite sure what I was in the mood for). Approximately 4 blocks from the hotel was a fantastic diner spot called Eggsperience Cafe. It was pretty crowded for a Wednesday at mid-morning, so I opted to sit at the counter where I could watch the TV and not be bothered. I ordered the chocolate & banana crepes, which were amazing! I wish I could fix crepes like that for breakfast every morning.
The rest of the day was spent working at the venue and finding a chance to get back to the hotel to clean up between rain showers. This was a long day having only one person doing the job that two normally do, so it was well after midnight by the time I trudged back to the hotel in the rain with all my things. I went to the promoter's office on the 4th floor of the hotel just to re-confirm my pickup time for the airport (5 a.m. - yuck!), and discovered there was a VIP reception on that floor for all the people participating in the comedy festival that week. So as much as I knew I needed to try and grab a couple hours of sleep before my flight, some of the guys I had been working with all day convinced me to stay and have a drink (which turned into three or four) and I ended up getting more of a cat nap than the few hour's sleep I had hoped for. The next day was just a blur of stumbling through a very crowded airport, boarding a plane in Chicago, getting off a plane in New York and sleepwalking through a day at the office. You better believe I crashed hard when I got home that night.
No more 4am wake-up calls when I have a full day of work that day...or maybe no more peer-pressure drinking?
My trip:
"Take me back to Chicago, I still dream of the lake of peacefulness
The warm summer breeze..." - Take Me Back to Chicago, Chicago (I thought this was a good quote because the weather was beautiful when I was out wandering around and it did feel peaceful...although I have no idea where that lake was!)
Miles Traveled Today: 1,580
Total Miles Traveled: 16,147
No comments:
Post a Comment