We’re in Chicago.
We drove from Norman Friday morning. It’s pretty easy… you take
Interstate 44 until you get to St. Louis, then I-55 till Chicago. I-44
passes through Springfield, MO, the first house Berck remembers living
in. We got lunch at Arby’s, and with Berck’s description of the
neighborhood to his mom, and his mom’s description of the house, we were
able to find it. We would have taken a picture, if we had a camera.
We got to Sydney’s apartment in Wicker Park after ten p.m. After
walking many blocks in search of food, we settled for a tasty taqueria
(where, unfortunately, I left my hat). Then we bought some beer and
headed back to Sydney’s roof (carrying a case of beer up an extension
ladder is tricky), which had a great view of the moon, the Sears Tower,
and some premature fireworks. Sydney’s roommates returned one by
one and shared our beer and stories. I finally petered out at three in
the morning, but everyone else apparently stayed up until dawn, when
Berck came to bed, happy to have had conversation with people other than
fellow pilots in so long.
Saturday we slept till noon despite the oppressive urban heat. We got
ready to head out to get breakfast (lunch), and the heavens opened,
pouring rain into the street. But a minute later, it had trickled to a
drizzle, and we walked the few blocks to the L station and caught a
train down to the Loop. Then we trekked through the intense humidity in
the general direction of Greek Town and picked a random gyro joint.
Tonight we ventured near the Loop to eat pizza at a place one of Syd’s
roommates works at. It was nice to have Chicago deep dish pizza. We
got a pitcher of beer on the house.
We walked back to and from the L in the rain, getting fairly wet, but
it’s nice and cool
Berck prepared some listening material for us before leaving Norman. He
stole some free stuff (that allows one to rip free RealAudio feeds to
wave files) and burned them to CD’s. We could have just put them on the
MP3 player, but then only one of us would have been able to listen to
them on the way home, since we’ve got two cars going back. We also got
a great deal on some audio books from Audible.com. Both of them are regulars on
This American Life. Sarah Vowell’s Partly Cloudy Patriot and David
Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, which we listened to on the way up
here. We were laughing so hard during some of his stories. He’s been
described as a gay Mark Twain. Most of his stories are about his
idiosyncratic family or trying to learn French after moving to France with
his boyfriend. If anyone wants to borrow the CD’s after we’ve listened
to them, maybe we’ll loan them to you. They’re pretty good driving
material. All for driving to the town where WBEZ is located, home of
This American Life.