A Canadian in America...

Back to normalcy...

So this week has been so much fun! Doug and his brother arrived on Monday night, and I pretty much spent the whole week hanging out with them, and Eric when he wasn't at work. Monday night at around 6:30 I'd say, Doug phoned me and I went over to their hotel room, which was only about 10-15 minutes away, and then we went over to TGIFridays and had good food. Then we hung out a bit at Eric's house because we were waiting for Eric to come home from work! The doggies barked a lot at Doug and Stuart, but at last Eric came home and we left. We spent the rest of the night (which wasn't very long) hanging out, talking and looking at Doug's photos on his computer. Tuesday was a very fun day because we spent the day seeing Chicago by foot. We caught the metra downtown (which takes about an hour) and then proceeded to walk several miles. As soon as we stepped out of the train station however, we got splattered from above by...something...it was dirty water, I think! I'll assume it was the window washers, but anyhow, I was wearing a white shirt and the stains did not come out in the wash. I am not impressed! So anyway, we walked down towards Grant Park, saw the new ampitheatre there, and then walked down towards the marina and then over to Navy Pier. It's a really nice walk along the water from Grant Park to Navy Pier, and there are so many boats to see!!! We spent a good chunk of time walking around Navy Pier, as there is a lot of shopping to do there and we had lunch there too. After that we walked back to Michigan Ave, walked north to the John Hancock building and Water Tower Place, and then back South towards the train station, stopping in a few stores such as the Apple store and Virgin music store. Michigan Ave is really fun to walk down because it has such good shopping, even if you are only window shopping. We walked back to the train station, caught the train home eventually and then headed back towards the hotel and eating at TGIFridays, again. All in all our adventure in the city was about 7 hours long (by foot, keep in mind) and it was awesome. Hopefully I'll get my pictures soon....
Wednesday we drove to the city in order to go to "The Museum of Science and Industry" which is a pretty interesting place! We spent about 5 hours wandering around looking at the exhibits, which were pretty cool. We didn't pay for any of the extra stuff, including this one exhibit where they have real human bodies basically showing us what we all look like inside and how we work etc. I had almost no desire to see that exhibit....although I guess it would be interesting.....blech. As Stuart put it, could you imagine if you were walking around that exhibit and you saw what really happened to Uncle Bob after all??!!?? Gross....
After we got back from the city (a trip that took a long time because we decided to take the scenic route) we went and ate Chicago deep dish pizza. Yummy!!!! We still have leftovers...mmmm....And then again, hung out at the hotel room for a bit.
Yesterday (thursday) Eric had to work, so Doug and I decided that we would just hang out while his brother went to like, the company that he works for, or something. Anyhow, I took Doug to the mall and we walked around a bit. We went to the Love Sac store:) and stuff like that. Then we were still waiting for his brother to call us to announce his arrival back in the 'burbs so we went to Barnes and Noble (book store) and then sat in the Starbucks there. I had one of those new Green Tea Frapuccinos, or however you spell that, and it was so good! I've never had one before, of any variety or flavour, and I was impressed. Good stuff:) Once Dougs brother called, we met up with him and headed over to Sam Ash to visit Eric and to check out the store. Then we killed a bit of time and then went to Portillos (50's style fast food joint) with Eric, eat and then spent our remaining time with Doug back at the hotel room, again:) It was really awesome seeing Doug, and actually having a friend here to hang out with and talk to! I didn't realize it had almost been a full year since I'd seen Doug last.
So now, things go back to normal, I guess. Eric seems to be getting more and more interest in him as a saxophone player, which is really good. He's got three students now, and some potential students as well. He also might become the resident saxophone teacher at his old high school, which is also really good!!! At least he can do productive things!!!!!! Well, I think that's about all the updating that I can do!! If I can, I'll post a couple of pictures when I get them...maybe Doug will send me some in an email and I'll post those because that will be MUCH easier than hooking up Eric's printer/scanner thingy, scanning photos into the computer and then posting them. We'll see!!!!

posted by Jo @ Friday, August 19, 2005