I love urban apartment buildings, with their weird corners and squeaky hardwood floors and musty-smelling stairways. I love effective public transportation, and the wooden and steel platforms, and the rumble of the El going past every few minutes. I love the narrow streets, and the haphazard parking, and the little shops, and the variety of people you pass while walking down the street. I love that you can get anywhere in the city without having to get into a car.
Chicago is different than I expected, but I love it anyway. I need to live somewhere like this for a while. Here, or New York, or Boston… There’s something about the big, old, crowded city feel that just makes me feel at ease, makes me worry less and relax more. I want to just stay here, and escape the stresses and disappointments of Houston and my job. The old cities just make me happy.
Today the weather forecast is calling for heavy thunderstorms, so our chances of seeing a full, uninterrupted White Sox game are slim. Better a rainout today though than tomorrow, when we’re going to see the Astros play the Cubbies. Friday night we drove to Milwaukee to see the Brewers lose to the Padres; the highlights of that game were the stadium roof, which opens like a fan, and the sausage races, which amuse me greatly. I had planned on buying only one souvenir (a pin) from Milwaukee, but left with three. The sausage socks and “Go Sausage Go!” t-shirt were too funny to pass up.
Yesterday, on our only day without a baseball game, we ended up taking a tour of Wrigley Field. Something baseball every day. We got to go on the field, and into the locker rooms, and press box. From there we headed to the Hancock building to see the city from above. I am completely enamored by the lake. It is so big, and so blue, and so pretty. It is what I feel like Clear Lake should be.
We had dinner with some of Christina’s friends last night, and that was fun. She has nice friends, a group I feel like would mesh well with the old Georgia Tech group, if we had to.
I’m so happy to be on vacation. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get away from work.
