Chicago: Day Two

Day 2 of being in Chicago! To start off the day, I got up around 7:30 in the morning (way too early for a Saturday, especially when no one is forcing me to get up). Christ made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, which were awesome. Who's that, you're asking? Oh, just a friend. Yeah, I'm friends with Christ. Pretty cool, huh?

My mother, her friend Rachel, Rachel's infant and I went downtown for a while, which was fun. We went for a walk through Millennium and Grant Parks, and narrowly avoided being trapped in a country music festival. Fortunately, all we had to hear was the drummer and bassist warming up.

My mom and I went into the "Fine Arts' building on State St., mostly because it looked cool. There was a sign out front advertising a used book store on the second floor, but it was closed when we checked it out. The building seemed to be full of music students heading to and from various symphonic instrument lessons. While we were waiting for a herd of them to clear out of the stairwell, one of the kids slipped on the bottom step and landed on the neck of his cello. It was in a case, but from the way the neck of the instrument looked, he definitely broke it. My mom now thinks I'm a curse to classical instruments everywhere.

We went to Old Navy, which was quite an experience. This particular establishment was three stories, and the bottom floor (women's) was a total feeding frenzy. They had a big $16 sale going on, which we totally took advantage of. My mom, the infant and I abandoned Rachel in the chaos downstairs, and went to look for cool clothes for me. I found a really nice looking pair of black corduroy skinny jeans, for the crazy price of $16. Buying clothing at that store for full price would just be foolish, they have such insane markdowns sometimes.

We headed to a place my mom found on her Blackberry that had Chicago-style hotdogs. It was in this nasty cafeteria, but the food itself was awesome. I got a gyro, and shared some chili fries with everyone (except the infant). After we finished eating, my mom pointed out a lady changing a baby on a table. I felt a bit queasy after seeing that, trust me.

We picked up some Chicago popcorn, then took the El home. A little while later, we swung by a huge, supermarket size liquor store, then stopped by a Mexican party store. I got a glass bottle of Pepsi imported straight from Mexico there! Now I'll never be able to drink regular Pepsi again...

The rest of the evening is going to be pretty low-key. The Michigan vs. State game is on TV, and my mom is making some kind of soup meal for dinner. tomorrow, we'll be watching the marathon and cheering people on, then driving home. Of course, you can expect a post about that when it happens!