I'm in Chicago for a month with my friends. I arrived first on Thursday. I nicknamed our place Chicondo (Chicago Condo). I think I'm pretty clever.
Flight
We boarded the plane on time, but we hung out at the gate for 40 minutes because of some passenger. I don't know what happened, my guess is they didn't want to wear their mask or was in possession of drugs. It took 30 minutes for the flight staff to settle on the passengers not joining the flight, and another 10 minutes to get their bags off the plane. We arrived 30 minutes delayed. The delay didn't affect me, but it was still annoying.
Rental Car
My brother told me there was high demand for rental cars right now, and low supply because the rental car companies didn't purchase a high volume of cars during covid. There's some economics metric to all of that as well, but what I gathered from my brother's info dump is that my car was not guaranteed.
I reserved a special that said it would give me a compact or higher. I was relieved to see cars available in the airport garage. The associate tried to give me an economy car. I told him the deal said compact or higher, but I couldn't pull up proof because it wasn't stated in the email and I was too frazzled to login to Chase. I held my ground through, and he let me get a compact car. He gave me a choice between a blue Hyundai or a Silver Nissan. I chose blue, of course. After however, I realized it had a Florida license plate. I don't know if the Silver Nissan had an Illinois plate, but I wish I had checked. I feel like a tourist with the out-of-state plate, but I'll have to get over it.
Chicondo
At first glance, the building looked like a commercial building. I was very confused. Once inside, I lugged my suitcase up not one, but two flights of stairs to get to the third story. It's always very nice to see the AirBnb lives up to the pictures on the website. It's even better when it's more spacious than you realized. I kept debating on which room I wanted. I also debated on which bathroom to use, the one near the room I chose, which I would share with a person I haven't met yet, or the en suite down the hall, which I could share with Christina. Ultimately, I chose proximity.
After checking in, I went grocery shopping. I went in without a shopping cart, and to my dismay, there weren't any inside. I was able to find a shopping basket, which reminded me to shop light and only for the night. I found myself ingredients to make Chicken Adobo, mac and cheese from the hot food section, and a bottle of wine.
I watched the Dodgers game, drank my wine and ate my dinner.
Filipino Breakfast
The next day, I went to Uncle Mike's Place. I circled a few times, unsure where to park. Chicago doesn't seem to have parking lots at these neighborhood spots, and parts of the street require permits. Inside, the restaurant was decorated more like a Chinese restaurant.
I ordered the Tocino Filipino Breakfast (aka Tosilog). They serve their breakfast with Lugaw. They set that down right after I ordered. It was a little bland (tabang), so I asked for fish sauce (patis), which made it better. The tocino was cooked, but it felt undercooked because the texture was soft. Like, they could have cooked it for 5-10 more minutes. One of the best parts of tocino is the the char that happens during grilling as the sugar from the marinade gets burnt sugar from the marinade. All in all, I'd prefer tosilog from a turo-turo ("point-point"/cafeteria style) restaurant.
@jmeprcn ##vlog ##FilipinoBreakfast with Lugaw (porridge), tocino, eggs and garlic fried rice ##chicago ##tosilog
♬ Breakfast Challenge Song (Slowly) - Spence
The 606
Later in the day, I wanted to find a nice park for my daily run. There's a large park 5 minutes from the Chicondo, but when I drove past, it was empty. It was eerie. There were only a few people hanging out on the edges. I didn't want to be the only one running, so I looked up best spots to run in Chicago.
The search led me to The 606/Bloomingdale Trail Park. It's an elevated path that travels almost 3 miles West-East. When I parked, I wasn't sure if it was the right place, but I followed other joggers to start the path. It's fantastic. It's the Marvin Braude Bike Path in the LA beaches meets the Chelsea Highline in New York. People rode their bikes, skateboards, scooters (electric ones not allowed), and rollerblades (I wish I could have brought mine!), in the middle lanes. The outer lanes were blue and were for pedestrians and runners. It has specific entry/exit points at major streets, and at each of these stops, there is a map showing you where you are on the trail. Best of all, everyone was there for exercise.
I feel like I'm making a big deal, but really, I enjoyed this gem of a park. I completed the 2.7 miles end to end, even though my normal run would only be 2.2 (okay fine, 2.1) miles. Then I turned around and walked back. I took video of myself and made a TikTok. I took the TikTok video and posted my first IG Reel onto my personal account. If Instagram can rebrand themselves, then I shall try to get comfortable posting that kind of content on that platform.
TikTok - Includes voiceover - I don't have a choice on the song clip start/end
@jmeprcn ##vlog 🏃🏻♀️ 5.4 miles round trip on ##the606 ##chicago
♬ Beautiful Mistakes - Maroon 5 & Megan Thee Stallion
Instagram Reel - I chose the verse section of the song. I love the verses.
I went back to The 606 the next day. The water fountains are out of commission, probably due to covid, and I didn't bring my water bottle with me. I clearly didn't account for how much hotter it was at 10am today vs 4pm yesterday. Next time, I will just bring it.
Instead of running to the end of the trail, I exited on Damen after hearing my app say "Workout complete!" It was a cool neighborhood with a bunch of shops and restaurants. I wished there was a vending machine that had ice cold waters. I walked all the way to Milwaukee, which was a diagonal street and had its own entrance back onto the Bloomingdale trail. (Note: I checked on Google Maps just now to get the street names correct. Google mentions the park is on a former rail line. That makes it even cooler to me!)
After, I tried to go home without GPS, but I took a wrong turn and ended up 20 minutes west of where I meant to be.
Airport
I picked up Luisa at the airport at 4pm. American's terminal was the busiest of the three I drove past. It was interesting to pick up someone I had never met or seen. I'd have so much anxiety if I were an Uber driver. She treated me to dinner. I chose a gastropub called Frontier. We sat at the bar and hung out with our server, Edgar. Between chatting with Luisa in the car and socializing at this bar, this was the most talking I had done in the past 2 days. Apart from Lucy at Uncle Mike's, I hadn't talked to anyone.
Christina and Meredith landed at 9pm. It was back to O'Hare, but now I was more experienced with the airport after picking up Luisa. I somehow ended on a toll freeway, with no cash option (gotta check on that later). I took a wrong turn (because the other road option felt too narrow) and ended up in the parking lot. The only way out was in. When I scanned my ticket, it was charging em $3. The lady inside the booth was not helpful because she was closed for the night. I was just going to pay, but Luisa said I shouldn't and I should go to the other line. The other attendant was much more helpful, and I didn't have to pay.
Now we're all here, and there's new energy in the house. The large hallway is filled with occupants for each of its rooms.
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