Jason and I made a whirlwind trip to Chicago last December to visit our friend Wendy.  First of all, our plane left at 6:30 pm on a Friday night, so I wanted to leave for the airport at 4:30 because I just knew it would take us forever to get there.  But, Jason insisted that we would not leave until 5 and that he wouldn’t give into any crazy warnings that you should be at the airport early because of heightened security measures.  So after work, I met him outside Rockefeller Center where we waited for our car.  After five minutes of waiting, I knew the care wasn’t coming.  But then it showed up.  We were running really late by now and I knew the 30-minute trip to the airport would take an hour because of weekend traffic.  And then, it happened… Somehow our livery cab was sucked into a time portal… we made it to the airport in fifteen minutes.  No one in the history of the world has ever made it from Rockefeller Center to La Guardia airport in fifteen minutes.  Needless to say Jason gloated and said “We’re going to be late” and “we have to leave a million hours early” in whining little voices.  Yes, he was right, we made it in plenty of time, but it was a FREAK accident. 

When we arrived in Chicago it was cold.  Jason wanted to go to a “big” restaurant- something we don’t have a lot of in New York.  So, Wendy took us to a place by her house that was perfect.  While we were there, she warned us about her vicious cat, Fabio.  Apparently he had trapped her sister upstairs and wouldn’t let her down.  Jason and I expected to see a ferocious, crazy beast.  Instead we met a big white fur ball that liked to roll on his back to have his tummy scratched.  I couldn’t believe this cat would be capable of scaring anyone and it made me wonder about Wendy’s sister…

On Saturday we went sightseeing downtown on Michigan Avenue and saw all the “rich people’s houses” by the lake.  Jason was excited to see the Chicago Board of Trade.  That night Wendy fixed us a great dinner and we celebrated an early Christmas.  Then we started talking about gambling and got all worked up and were just about to take off for the riverboats, but Jason suggested we sleep it off and if we still wanted to go in the morning then we should.  Well, we didn’t, we went to a play instead.  It was great and timed perfectly so that when it was over, it was time for us to go to the airport.  The weekend had passed very quickly, but we had a great time.

Always the way with Vanessa, the big story is in the traveling not the destination.  She also left out the most important thing we saw - the first ever McDonalds.  Vanessa and Wendy probably thought my fascination with this McDonalds was a bit freakish but for some reason it just seemed so cool.  We drove by it a few times and I was always surprised to see nobody there looking at it.  I would have thought it would have been more popular than Wrigley Field or the Sears Tower.  

I was very impressed with downtown Chicago.  It is proof that just because a city is big it can also be clean.  We used the restrooms in the Sears Tower,  unfortunately they were on the second floor so we didn’t go to the top.  I am glad we went around Christmas time to.  The decorations were great and I think every city feels good around Christmas time.  I got to see one of the neighborhoods Bill lived and we checked out some leather, S&M, headshops that I believe Wendy likes to shop at.  Just kidding really it was for Fabio.

Wendy was a wonderful host and I can't wait to visit again when it is a bit warmer .