A tale of two Mexican restaurants

We ate our first Chicago dinner at Topolobampo. It was so delicious. Lisa had a three-mole sampler, and one of the recipes was three hundred years old, the very chatty waiter told us. I had a classic sampler of tasty bite things and some good pinto beans. We waited in line for about 25 minutes to eat here. I had a tasty microbrewed beer from Mexico, and Lisa had a margarita. She had homemade vanilla bean ice cream with goat-milk-caramel topping. Quite expensive, all told. But delicious.

Last night, we went to Garcia's, in Lincoln Square, before we went to see a concert at the Old Town Folk School.  My combo cost $11, and I had two Especial Modelo beers. We saw about six cops eating dinner there, and many families. It was like a giant room with papercuts hanging from the ceiling. For dessert, we had flan that was quite good.

back!

We returned this afternoon. I'm very glad to be home, after 11 days away (2 in Montreal, 5 at conference, and then 4 vacationing in Chicago). The cats are clinging to me like lint onto velcro.

Yesterday we went to the Chicago Historical Museum, which was so, so good. They had lots of Chicago Exposition stuff, some histories of local families, a series of interviews with people on their various neighbourhoods. Special exhibitions included Chicago wedding dresses, Abraham Lincoln's deathbed, and an AMAZING low-rider installed in the foyer. Also, wicked gift shop.

We also walked along the beaches of Lake Michigan, went on a fun boat tour of city architecture, and ate hot dogs. We would both go again.

The Polish are coming!

There was some kind of big Polish sports event yesterday. There were yobs (or Polish version of yobs) on the El, hollering "POLSKA! POLSKA!"

We spent an enjoyable afternoon puttering around Ukrainian Village / Wicker Park. We each bought some footwear. I went to Quimby's Comics (a store I have long wanted to go to), and we drank $4 mojitos. Judith went back to hotel for a nap, and then I walked around more, window shopped, drank some microbrew, read comics. And then we went out to Morton's to eat steak. That felt very stereotypically Chicago. We people-watched to see how many "middle Americans" we could see there. Answer: many.

My Kind of town....Chicago is

Made it to the hotel yesterday, I am not too sure what I was thinking when I booked my flight it left at 7:30 in the morning. That meant at the airport by 5:30, groan. But I got through security (the US Border guy was very nice) and was sitting drinking a latte by 5:45. I slept a lot of the trip, and found the shuttle to the hotel without too much trouble, after we landed. After checking into the hotel I took a walk over to Nordstorms (I love that store) and had a bite of lunch. There is the coolest Lego store with gigantic lego made things (darth vader, an octopus, lifesize people on benchs), in the mall, and it made me think of Christmases and all my nieces and nephews. After doing some shopping (window only no purchases made). I came back to the hotel and had a nap. I love vacations. Allison and I will meet today at the hotel, her conference went until 9:30 last night so she decided to stay at the Hostel and winds up today at 4:30. I am off to do some walking and looking around.

It has been a good week

I have had a week full of visiting and catching up with people so it has been great. Last Saturday I went to the market with Vicky, I had not seen her for awhile, so we shopped and then caught up with each other over a latte. Saturday night Grace invited me over to her new place for supper. She made stir fry and eclair's for dessert. I brought over a bottle of Geoff's wine so it was a real "Ferrey" meal. I got to meet Wren, one of her roommates, and Leanna joined us for supper. Corrinna the fourth roommate was off on some kind of a camping trip for one of her classes, so did not meet her. I love the house, it is in a great location and it looks so nice, all reno'ed up. Sunday night it was supper with Grace again, only at my house this time, it was the start of the Amazing Race. I made a new recipe, and it turned out pretty good, steak with a mushroom sauce. It does not feel right to watch the race without Grace, so I was very glad she made it. Tuesday night I had a friend over, Polly, her sister lives in Costa Rica with her family. So Polly brought over pictures from one of her trips to CR, and we compared stories of our visits. Wednesday night it was Sam's turn to visit. He is a very busy guy so I was glad he had time to come over. Listening to all he has going on makes me feel like a slug, maybe I am just lazy (like Theresa). Made another new recipe, this time pork with mushrooms. It turned out very good as well. Finally on Friday night, I had Karen over (a friend from when I worked on the government upgrade) we had a good visit, and then off to the Jubilee to see Mamma Mia. It was such a feel good musical, and I loved the way they integrated the songs. I really laughed.

After all that busyness yesterday was a pajama day. I stayed in them all day, read and watched true crime stories on TV and napped. Today is the first S&B of the season, I am the guest, so I don't even need to fuss. The coming week will be just as good as last week, I think, out for supper with some friends on Monday night, Chicago on Wednesday, and seeing the Muppets on Friday. Only down side is that Grace can't come for Amazing Race.