20: howdy from Chicago

(thank you)

I have made the drive back from St. Louis. This is a small adventure compared to the MegaBus filled with Pampered Chef employees that carried us from Chicago to St. Louis. For now, Joe and I are still hours apart... but fewer hours. He made the drive to Evansville today after moving out of his studio apartment.

He'll spend the week with his family before coming to Ohio for wedding preparations gone crazy. Before all of that starts, we had a few days in Chicago–a mix of work and play.

My good friend Kristen opened her apartment to us and showed us the way around her neighborhood (near Lincoln Park). The trip was great from start to finish. While I don't normally just chat about my day(s), there were so many great discoveries we made and places we saw that I have to share them.

Tuesday started with a long walk, a stop by Intelligentsia. I'm a huge fan of the coffee–I hesitate to use this word–chain. Their storefronts/cafés are incredible for their design and branding. I envy the person that created their logo.

While the crowd tends to make me a bit uncomfortable and insecure (because, let's face it, they know they're cooler than I am), everything about the place reminds me why I want a coffee shop. Good coffee is the heart of a good, social community. Good pastries are the heart of a good morning. Good staffs that recognize that are essential. I was soaking up the employee's contentment like my pain au chocolat was soaking up my macchiato.

While eating fresh falafal from Zad, we watched Once. Kristen and I had worked on a documentary project together, so it was nice to call out bits and pieces of the film (made with two cameras in two weeks) that reminded us of our own experience. I immediately fell in love with The Swell Season and wished them every success.

After the movie, we headed back out into the world for dinner. And what a dinner it was. La Creperie is a definite treasure in Chicago, with a true French style, flavor and atmosphere. The humble building and long back patio put you immediately at ease (ease then furthered by a bottle of white wine). All I can say is that I hope millions of people go here.

We sat at our patio table, sipping and savoring slowly–very slowly. We pulled ourselves from the seats two hours later, better people for the time and the conversations we allowed ourselves. This is a problem the three of us have–not allowing ourselves the pleasure. While the sight-seeing and food in Chicago were lovely, they were nothing compared to the conversations about feminism, marriage and finding yourself in a city that the restaurants allowed us to have without rushing us from our table or asking too many questions.

Dinner was in sharp contrast to dessert at Baladoche, where we wolfed down $30 of Zücher waffles topped with gelato topped with whipped cream smeared with crunchy Nutella in less than ten minutes. I don't even know what to say really, other than I hope my dress still fits and I can't stop thinking about pearl sugar. (Go there and you'll understand.)

We were up and at it early again on Wednesday, meeting up with another friend in Rogers Park at a delightfully hippie hub, Heartland Café. If you're into food that's filling and does the body good, you've found the right rundown building. Rundown in that established way that seems oddly, confidently permanent. My fruity nutty pancakes (which I could almost make it through one of) were packed with walnuts, strawberries, peaches, bananas, blueberries, whole-wheat flour and pure maple syrup. I know.

I know.
I'll accelerate here.

We waddled our way down to the beach (right, with its painted benches), around a sculpture garden made of kid's meal toys and recycling, up to the café again and into the car, which took us to Heaven.

Architectural Artifacts could easily become my second home if I were living in the Windy City. The two sprawling warehouses are joined together to create a design lover's fantasy playground. You never know–never–what you'll find in the next room. Like an entire cauldron of letters from the typesetting days at the University of Nottingham.

Our nails turned a bit black as we dug through the letters for a lowercase 'e' to complete our backwards spelling of Betz. I may or may not have come away with a semi-colon. Sometimes I can't help myself.

Dinner was again hours of conversation and relaxation–and calling out the fact that we were conversing and relaxing. This time, we were surrounded by picnicing families and friends in Ravinia's lawn for a Swell Season concert. The whole experience, from the fresh salad and fruit dinner to the perfect weather and trees surrounding us, made it impossible not to love the band all the more, and love Kristen for creating such an amazing experience.

Wow. Exhausting, right? So we crashed. And we crashed hard. And the next day, we were off to convince the French Consulate to give us visas... which ended up being free of complication, cost and complaints. Merci, Chicago and à bientôt, Nancy!