friday night after work, we decided to walk up to downtown evanston for sushi at koi, where i had sake for the first time. i had it cold, but i think i would like it better hot. it was definitely strong, and they give you plenty of it. the food was good, as was expected, and we happened to be seated in the same spot as we were last time we went there. after dinner, we wandered up to the movie theater to catch superbad, since we had heard it was incredibly funny. it was. it was pretty dirty at times, but was well done and had a nice ending. after the movie, we were wandering back home, and decided to stop at nevin's pub to have a beer (shandy for me -- my new favorite incognito girly drink) and play some darts. heath beat me three (?) times in a row at cricket, but at least i hung in there, making it a close game every time.
saturday, we got up and went to the farmer's market, then came home and did a lot more picking up and unpacking around the apartment. yes, still unpacking. we made a ton of progress this weekend, and are getting down to the last few things. the place is starting to look more like a home and less like a box depository.
in the afternoon, we watched the illini football game (more on that in a later post) and i made eggplant parmesan with some of the stuff we got at the farmer's market. we had a nice dinner with a bottle of gewurztraminer from round barn winery in michigan. after dinner, heath gave me a gift to mark us being together for six months. it's a really lovely silver necklace from tiffany & co (somewhere i never thought i'd ever own anything from). you can see it in the picture i posted below. he also had planned something special for sunday and monday, but that was still a surprise. (as a side note, i had given him an authentic ron santo cubs jersey the wednesday before when we went to see the cubs lose to the brewers.)
sunday morning, we packed up and hopped on the purple line to head into chicago. we got off at grand, and dropped our bags off at a hotel. we got some lunch at su casa, a mexican place in the area, before walking south along michigan avenue. we got on the trolley (it was PACKED), and
took that down to the museum campus. through work, heath has a membership to the field museum, and neither of us had been there in quite a while, so we headed there. it sounds dorky, but it was a lot of fun. i learned a lot about how much has changed regarding what scientists know about dinosaurs since i was a kid. they also have redone large portions of their permanent exhibits, which were a lot of fun to look at. the museum closed at 5, so they kicked us out. we saw the line for the trolley and felt sick. we were about to take a cab, then realized we could just slum it and take the bus ;). it was a good choice, since it was air conditioned, and less crowded than the taxi (totally worth $1.75). however, as it chugged up state street, we came to a stop, the lights went out, and the driver hopped off and started walking around the bus. weird. also, there was some beeping. weird. turns out it was a fire alarm. what?! shouldn't the bus driver have told us to get off the bus? oh well, there was no fire, but we got off and walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, which was fine because it was only a few blocks. the weather was great. we were wishing we had worn shorts instead of jeans all day, but it was alright. the river and the lake were beautiful shades of green and blue, respectively. :P we got back to the hotel and went down to the pool and spa and hung out there for a while. it was very relaxing and a lot of fun. then we headed back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner.
we got pretty dressed up and walked to the hancock building to eat at the signature room, which is on the 95th floor. it was already dark, so the view was amazing. we were seated by the window, but the view was partially obscured by one of the big black cross beams. it was still
really cool, though. dinner was fantastic. heath had several lobsters in various formats and i had a filet mignon that seriously melted in my mouth. overall a very romantic and relaxing dinner. after dinner, we considered going up to the lounge (on the 96th floor), but decided to go walk around and find somewhere else to hang out, since that lounge can get kind of snobby and was likely beyond packed at that point.
we walked down the streets, trying to figure out where to go to have a drink or two, and ended up coming across the redhead piano bar. fortunately we were dressed up, so they let us in (telling us how great we looked on the way in - how fun is that?!). we found a small table right away and listened to the pianist go through billy joel, elton john, coldplay, johnny cash, and all sorts of songs. we had a couple of drinks, people watched, and had a great time.
monday morning, we slept in since we were exhausted. by the time we checked out, it was pretty much lunchtime, so we tried to figure out where to eat. we settled on espn zone since it was sort of on the way back to the train and would be pretty fun. we had a bite to eat and then played some of the arcade games: bowling, air hockey, basketball, that old school hockey game with the plastic puck in the plexi dome (you know the one i mean), various racing games, and whatever else looked fun. it was definitely a good place to stop to just goof off and have fun.
the train ride home took forever, since somebody had apparently jumped on the tracks south of the station we were at. trains were mega delayed. it was hot and stuffy in the underground station, and was getting more and more crowded by the minute since there was a cubs game that was going to start in about an hour. fortunately, we had our suitcases to use as chairs and i had a couple magazines. that helped take the pain out of the wait. we let the lemmings cram themselves onto the first two trains that came into the station, knowing that due to the delay and backup, there would likely be a bunch of trains all in a row. we got on the third train and tucked ourselves into the end seats in one of the cars, where we could read in peace and our suitcases would be out of the way. once we finally got home, we rested and then did some more unpacking, making even more headway. it was a great weekend, despite the drama that sometimes accompanies public transit in chicago. it was really nice of heath to plan the little getaway for us.
next weekend: back to camping!
