Juliacentralicious

And Back to Hiatus

Now I'm settled, and the travel blog goes once again into hibernation. Hello, Minneapolis.

posted by Julia @ 3:15 PM 0 comments

Part Four: Custody Changes!

I also spent some time with Cindy! We had a nice weekend (filled up on Green Wing—and if any of you have watched it: What was that ending about??), went out to a cute restaurant and so on.
Then there was the fateful day of the Move. Mike left that morning, so I spent the day hanging around (only slightly awkwardly) his house. His mom was very nice, kept taking me around the neighborhood on errands and buying me food. In the evening, I headed over to Cindy's to help begin to move, since they had both apartments for a few days, we could afford to be leisurely. Though it was not a luxury we actually took. The boys started lifting, we started cleaning, and about twelve hours later I found myself watching the sunrise in their new apartment, on my fifth or so beer, remnants of the kitchen half unpacked behind me.
Their new place is actually the entire second story of this fantastic house—half a block from the liquor store, a block from a pizza place, and about five blocks from a coffeeshop. I am in love with this apartment—big old fashioned windows fill the front room, which were kept open pretty much constantly, a steady stream of moderate traffic out front, just enough that it came across as more oceanic, less annoying. I spent the days reading beat literature and walking to the coffeeshop, and then we'd just hang out in the evenings listening to music and watching the traffic and people go by. Most relaxing apartment ever.

posted by Julia @ 3:13 PM 0 comments

Part Three: How Else I Spent My Time

The most interesting (read: surreal) part of this was meeting Mike's family and friends and family friends. I got vaguely girlfriend treatment: "Oh, so this is your first time out here meeting all the family and friends," and "Yes, we've heard about you."
We hung out with his friends, which was generally cool—there was a birthday party that needed attending, and a prodigious amount of HeroQuest (old school game, involving miniature figures and a dungeon board). Typical larks abounded, included trying to kill the wizard at all costs, and misusing the phrase "Zoltan, open the door." Bonus points to our party for surviving one level with about twelve various baddies, us with no weapons, the wizard opening all the doors, and us scattering in all directions for lack of a better plan. And we only lost our barbarian. (Perhaps it was funnier if you were there?) There were a couple nights where, I belive, we played until five in the morning. (Someone remind me that I need to find a group in Minneapolis!)
The weather must also be applauded: it was generally warm (hot!) and wonderful for exploring a new city, except for a couple nights of fantastic rain and storms—my, I have missed a good Midwest storm. It was glorious. Umbrellas were ignored, puddles were splashed in. I absolutely love running around in the rain.

posted by Julia @ 3:12 PM 0 comments

Part Two: Food

I'm not a foodie. This is perhaps why I occassionally felt quite stupid around Mike's family, because they quite definitely are. However, I ate better that week than I perhaps ever have in my life. And for that, I will commence name-dropping restaurants and gloating about how incredibly tasty it all was.
We went to Neha one night, a nice place downtown, with his family and some family friends. This is the best indication of how we ate: everyone got their own individual appetizers, plus entrees, plus desserts. Also two bottles of wine for the table. We operated on the "take two bites and pass your plate to the left" method, so that everyone could sample everything ordered. It was incredibly tasty, especially the duck that I got. Another example of how particular everyone is with food—two dishes were sent back, a steak for being too well cooked, and a fish for being too salty. Wow, that's all I can say.
Mike's mom took us to Manny's, a super old deli that's been around for ages, and has a divine pastrami on rye, as well as lots of friendly old people. Also had some of the best deep-dish pizza of my life, at a place called Lou Malnati's.
The best by far was a place called Joe's—but imagine the opposite of what a place called Joe's should be. Very upscale, very classy. Our waiter was more of a guide through dinner than simply a waiter (he recommended the corn by describing it as a "bowl of sunshine"—which is was), and joking with us (he applauded me after I managed to finish my dinner). Mike got king crab legs—which they took out of the shell for him, right at the table. I got bone-in rib-eye (over forty dollars, and this was the cheapest bone-in meat they had), which was as rare as possible and incredibly tasty. We had nice white wine. We got dessert, the much-recommended peanut butter pie, which our waiter supplemented with a complementary piece of banana cream pie. He was quite adamant that the only way to eat them was to get some of both on one fork and eat them together—and of course he was right. I don't even like banana cream pie, but this was amazing. I felt just like Elvis, but more pie, less fried sandwich. After we had left, standing out front waiting for valet to bring the car around, there were a couple homeless guys who passed by, offering to shine the shoes of Mike's dad. One was particularly insistent, pestering us more and more as we stood there. And (here is the illustration of just how fancy this place is) a bouncer for the restaurant—this big black dude—comes outside and tells him to move on, afterwards apologizing to us for the guy bothering us. Wow.

posted by Julia @ 3:11 PM 0 comments

Chicago, Illinois: My New Favorite Place

Part One: Culture
Oh my. I adore Chicago, I really do. It's high density, so much more than LA (not like that's hard), and even more so than Portland in some ways. Chicago is like a very shiny polished Portland.
Fortunately for me, Mike's family is a member of just about everything, so I was able to finagle my share of touristy trips. Did you know that the Chicago Zoo in Lincoln Park is free? Free. We spent some time walking around there—big kitties! They have a super-impressive monkey house—lots of gorillas and chimps and such, and of course all the cute little ones. Pretty impressive African exhibit as well. They have what appears to be a reckless attitude towards displaying the animals—the lion habitat doesn't actually have a cage, just a chasm that (I assume) he can't leap between him and you. Similarly, their spiders have nothing at all, only the zoo's assurance that since both food and water are delivered to the spiders at their current webs, they would have no desire to leave. But what if they just wanted to? They could.
We also hit up the Aquarium—which is also pretty impressive. They certainly do displays right here. We even caught a bit of the dolphin show (they leap! They swim on their backs with the trainers! They spin!). They had a special exhibit on lizards (featuring a Komodo, which explained why they had transformed the entrance line outside into the gaping maw of a lizard—which, thanks to the previously-mentioned membership, we didn't have to wait in). I do have an encouraging story from there, however. They have a large reef exhibit in what is like the basement—you have to take a special elevator to go down there, and when you're done, there's a long line to ride the elevator back up, especially since people didn't seem to realize that you have to actually press the button for the elevator to come. A museum usher (attendant? What are they called?) was walking down the line, yelling at us that we did indeed have to press said button, when some people ahead of us asked about stairs (it was, like I said, a very long line). The guy replies that there are indeed stairs, but it's a few flights up. He can, however, show us the door. We immediately jump out of line with them, followed by more and more people. It was wonderful—a whole score of Americans refusing to stand in line, choosing a few flights of stairs over laziness. It may not seem like much, but sometimes it's nice to see that people aren't as hopeless as you think.
There's also, of course, the Field Museum, home to Sue the T-rex (one of the best-preserved T-Rexs there is) and many other shiny exhibits (the shiniest, of course, being the gemstone collection). Pretty neat Egyptian exhibit, and of course the history of the earth (aka stuffstuffstuffDINOSAURSstuffMASSEXTINCTIONstuffstuff). It was also the setting for an awful movie called "The Relic," which we subsequently watched.
A couple days later, Mike's mom took us to the Garfield Conservatory, which used to be the largest conservatory in the US. It's still pretty damn impressive. They have art installations there, too, though I can't say I'm a fan of the mosaic-pudgy-woman-and-other-tackiness sculptures they had (I forever regret I missed the Chihuly installation). But the fern room was awesome—it's such a nice peaceful place, I wish we had brought sandwiches or something.
I also had Mike take me to Millenium Park later that day. It's this big beautiful park (of which Chicago has many), but the most awesome part about it is the Bean. A giant (much larger than I had imagined) chrome, super-shiny kidney bean shape. When we went, there was a wedding party getting pictures taken in front of it, and a cloud of tourists around it. You can get all sorts of fun skyline views reflected in it, and when you stand directly underneath it, it's like looking at yourself at the bottom of a very small, deep hole. Pretty damned sweet. They also have these fountains—two large upright rectangles made out of glass blocks, "facing" (it's a pun, see, because they have large, and I mean LARGE moving faces of light on them) each other over a flat area. There's water falling from the tops of them, and also sometimes from where the mouths are. I'll be honest—it's a bit creepy. There's also the Gehry outdoor concert venue thing. When we were passing by, there was some bluesy sort of group playing, almost rehearsing. Pretty chill.
There were the more mundane things of Chicago, as well. Trips downtown for errands involving Mike or his sister. Riding the El (which for me was beyond mundane—it's a train! But elevated.), which has some pretty good views of the city. I'll say again that I love how dense the city is—narrow streets, tall buildings, all that. It was great.

posted by Julia @ 3:08 PM 0 comments

MinnesotaWisconsin: Drive, drive, drive

It was flat, and it was rainy. It felt somewhat strange to see all that farmland, a little twinge of familiarity asserted itself. We arrived in Chicago late, and pretty promptly crashed.

posted by Julia @ 3:07 PM 0 comments