I’m in Chicago!

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The morning started pretty bad because I was all ready except for one thing: I didn’t have a car. I kept trying to get ahold of mom for an hour to find out where she was, turns out she was at the marina. I can’t believe she would be that stupid to go and lounge in front of the pool when she knew that I had to use the car and drive here today. What did she think, that I was going to drive at night? Just stupid.

Drive was pretty long, but bearable. I spent alot of time switching radio channels, it didn’t seem like there was anything good on. Luckily this time around I was able to handle the express loop, and was able to find my exit. When I got into Chicago, man was it packed with people walking all around with colorful outfits. It was really cool to drive downtown a little bit, and I even had only minor lane-turning-finding troubles.

I didn’t have much trouble finding the place, but I had to drive around the block to get into the self-park garage. I am right in the heart of downtown! On Ontario St., one street away from Michigan, it’s like you couldn’t get a better spot. When I parked the car I swiped my cc and was kinda confused that I didn’t take a ticket, and I had to ask a guy in the lobby who explained it to me very un-enthusiastically.

Even though I was tired from driving, I wanted to walk around a bit. So that’s what I did. In doing so I got a bit sweaty, and realized that I want to lose 5 to 10 pounds or so, but other than that it was pretty cool. Lots of people around and buzzing business. There was a constant line at the Apple store, I don’t know for what reason though. After walking around a little while I came back to the room and took a shower. Since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I was pretty hungry. I looked up places where I could just order pizza by the slice on the Internet, and someone said that Gino’s sells by the slice. So I walked down to Gino’s, took about ten minutes, and walked in. Didn’t look like I could just order one and stick around, I would have to wait in the long line if I wanted any. So I ordered a medium cheese for pickup, and the girl working there said it would be an hour and I said OK. I didn’t know of anyplace I could hang out for an hour, so I started heading back to my room. On the way back I decided that I didn’t really want to walk all around downtown Chicago holding a big pizza box, so I would drive and pick it up. Then I thought about the hassle with the traffic, and maybe having to pay to remove it from the parking garage and park it again. So when I got to my room I called the pizza place and asked them to deliver it to me. They said that although I’m in a different Gino’s restaurant zone they could deliver it and it would be there at 8:50. Well 8:50 rolls around and nothing. A lot of the time I was nervous and thinking that maybe I should call room service and tell them that a pizza was coming for me, but I ended up not doing that. Instead I called the pizza company, and the guy was talking all scared like I was gonna yell at him seemed like he was under a lot of pressure and he said he would give me free pop, and that he didn’t have any drivers left and they were already all out and that he sees my pizza and it’s sitting there all warm and good still. He ended with “ok here comes the guy now” and that was it.

When the guy came, around 10, he was a greasy Chinese guy around my age, definitely not American. And his English was a little shotty. He asked for the total and I said that I already paid for it, and he was like “oh, ok”, and I tried to explain to him that I also had to pay for delivery, and he was like no, don’t worry about it, just tip”. So I was like, oh well ok, and I gave him $5. I wasn’t sure if $5 was a good enough tip in Chicago but he noticeably got happy when I gave it to him and thanked me so I think that was good enough.

So, the pizza was good. I could only eat two slices, so I got lots left over that I will save for breakfest and put in the car tomorrow before checkout, hehe. I was also really glad I decided not to go out and bring back a drink, or buy pop from the pizza place, because I ended up getting it for free.

Jonathan called and thanked me for the wedding gifts while I was waiting for the pizza, that was nice of him.