I've just return from the preverbial windy city. The town lives up to it's name. It was really nice when we were down there but windy as all hell. We walked many miles, saw many a site and had many a good time.
I celebrated my birthday in a local hole in the wall. The blues in this city is fantaz-great. The bar..."The Underground Wonder Bar" is a mish-mash of local, homeless, tourist and nouveau bohemian people. It's now possibly my favorite bar. They have the local beer, Heileman's Old Style, that tastes like crap however once you have a few you don't really notice the old feet taste.
We went in the first night we were there and were welcomed by Darlene the bar keep, who didn't really care where we sat, didn't give a shite what we orderd...as long as she got a picture of my travelling Gnome "Biney" in her shirt...she didn't care what the hell we were up to.
After the hangover subsided the next morning we went walking all over the city. Mainly stuck to the north side but once we ventured down to the the south side...we met the Chi-Town Crazies. There were homeless people there but I figured that they were the same as the homeless/psych patients in my city.
I was wrong.
I was sitting enjoying a well deserved cigarette, when an obviously homeless male walked passed us. We wouldn't of really noticed he was even there until he bitch slapped a woman on her shoulder. She didn't even react. My friend and I were completely gobbsmacked. We looked at eachother then back at this man-he then gave us the double handed finger...waving them @ us.
Wow...okay that was nuts but funny...I thought that is the worst we would get...again
I was wrong.
Not ten seconds later we noticed another middle aged man, obviously homeless with an impish grin, dancing randomly infront of a store. He started with, what I call half assed jazz hands. Continued with jazz hands mixed with drunken scottish dancing then he proceeded to molest himself. Of course at this point in the dance I tried to caputre this fellow on camera. Much to my shagrin he moved on, walking up the road. Almost done my smoke, I put my camera back in my bag and turned around. I now find myself face to face with the crazy dance psycho. My jaw hung open as my friend and I observed him pick a flower...smell the flower...then smell me...then try to put the flower in my tank top strap. At this point I jumped up, terrifying many pedestrians, and screamed at him "DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH ME". We started to walk away and he remained half hunched over in the flower garden we were sitting in front of.
Needless to say we would not sit anyway for longer than 30 seconds for the rest of the trip.
I do have to say, that despite are crazy experiences listed above the people from Chicago are some of the friendliest people that I have ever met in a big city. They are funny and clearly take pride in there city.
I could totally live there.
Be sure to see the Navy Pier, the Downtown, The many museums and please the city by water (either water taxi or a tour boat).
Hopefully you have enjoyed my little blog.
