Getting There
Our flight was uneventful. We left Raleigh at 6:30 am eastern time and arrived in Chicago at 7:30 am central time. We packed light, so we didn’t have to check anything. We’d been told that the subway ride from the airport to downtown would probably exceed one hour, so we opted for a shuttle trip. The service we found would also be able to pick us up Sunday morning, so it seemed a good option, as well as reasonably priced.
Our plan was to leave our bags with the concierge at our hotel, and then do a bit of sightseeing before we returned in the afternoon, when we could check in. At the desk, though, they offered to check us in early. It was just after 8 am.
Our hotel was the Affinia Chicago. We were extremely pleased at being able to check in so early. The room was amazing. At first i thought we had been upgraded. The room had steps(!), as well as three separate “areas”, one for sleeping, one with a desk and one sitting room area, with a coffee table and everything. However, i think this might just be one of their normal rooms. It didn’t have any of the amenities i would have expected of an upgraded room. It was very nice, though. The bed felt like clouds and the chairs were comfortable.
The concierge was also very helpful. She told us where we could buy a 3-day pass for the buses and trains. That was our next stop, and then we headed north to Wrigley Field.
Wrigley Field Ballpark Tour
All ballparks have some history. Even if one is new, the team has history and there are tributes to all sorts of players and traditions and stories. I imagine most if not all parks have a tour available, and i think visiting all the ballparks has become one of my goals. Wrigley Field has tours starting every half hour throughout the day.
We got there at 9:15 and dawdled for 15 minutes while waiting for the next tour to start. Our group only had 8 or 10 people in it. Our guide was a pudgy girl in a too-tight shirt who was younger than me. I have no doubt she is a big baseball fan, but she wasn’t very good as a guide. She spouted the facts well enough, and we learned a lot of interesting things, but she didn’t make the place come alive. We kept running into the group in front of us – they had started 30 minutes before us, but we were on top of them the whole time. Their guide was an old codger who had probably witnessed a lot of the history and had good stories to share. We overheard him sharing a story about Harry Carey. Our guide only mentioned him in passing.
The park was still very interesting, though. I was particularly fascinated by the “Wrigleyville” bleachers. The park is so small (some 40,000 seats) that the nearby buildings can see a lot of what is happening in the park. To capitalize on that, the owners have built bleachers on top of their buildings, and sell seats to all the games. Food is often included, so those seats cost more than many of the seats that are in the park.
Gino’s East Pizzeria
After the tour, we headed back towards downtown. Right next to our hotel was Gino’s Pizzeria. Lance was in the mood for Chicago food, so that’s where we went.
It was a neat-looking place. The walls were completely covered with graffiti-type writing. We were led upstairs. As we looked over the menu, we decided to order a deep dish pizza. It would take 45 minutes, we were warned, so Lance got some minestrone (which he loved) while i started with a salad (i was not impressed).
When it arrived, the pizza was amazing. I don’t think i ever knew that Chicago was famous for putting their sauce on top of the pizza. That Chicago was famous for pizza, i knew. And now i understand why. It was fabulous. We ordered a large with the intent to take the uneaten portion back to the hotel and eat it for dinner or snacks.
It was only 11 when we arrived at the pizza place, but we were famished all the same. After all it was noon “our time” and we had had a full morning. Breakfast had been at 4:45 am – seven hours earlier. The food coma set in as we were paying for the meal, and around 12:30 we came back to the hotel for a nap. That made us doubly glad we had been able to check-in early.
Downtown
At 3:30, we arose and headed further downtown to meet Adam and Nora. The concierge had told us we could walk it, though it would be a healthy walk. We joined the throngs on the sidewalks that are normal on Chicago weekdays.
We were meeting Adam and Nora at the The Taste of Chicago festival taking place in Grant Park. We were planning to just hang out for a couple of hours with them before we went back to the Cubs game that night. On the way, we saw the attraction Adam calls the Big Bean, more commonly known as the Cloud Gate, although i think Big Bean is certainly apt. Then we found the festival.
How to describe it. The Taste of Chicago was roughly equivalent to the State Fair, but with more people, less space, more stink, and no animals or livestock or rides. We could hardly walk. We both went into sensory overload. We escaped into a grassy area where couples littered the lawn, and we became one of them as we waited for Adam and Nora to call us and tell us where they were.
After a while, we wandered (outside the fesival boundaries – there was no way we were going back in there) down to Buckingham fountain and watched a few street performers. Adam called and had gotten tied up at work, so they would probably not make it before we had to leave. Oh well – we’ll see them tomorrow. We decided to go ahead up to Wrigley Field.
Chicago Cubs vs Milwaukee Brewers
Wrigleyville was a completely different place than it had been that morning. This morning, it had been quiet. Now, people were everywhere, vendors hawking their wares streetside, men selling peanuts or T-shirts or tickets. We went into the stadium and found seats in the right field bleachers.
It was a great game. This was only my second major league baseball game, and i cannot complain about the games i have seen. My first game was the Nationals vs the Marlins, where Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off home run – very exciting. My first Cubs game was even more fun. Here are the highlights:
- Prince Fielder, the star of my fantasy baseball team, hit a home run
- There were six home runs in the game
- All the players who hit home runs are owned by either me or lance in various fantasy baseball leagues.
- The first time the Brewers hit a home run, we saw the Cubs fans try to shame him into throwing the ball back onto the field, but that guy fan wanted to keep his baseball.
- The second time the Brewers hit a home run, the Cubs fan threw it back.
- A drunk girl two rows in front of us was ejected from the game, i guess it was for being too drunk. She left to a chorus of “Sha na na na, Sha na na na, Hey hey hey, Goodbye” from the fans around her.
- A foursome five rows in front of us as ejected from the game for lighting a joint in the 8th inning. Right next to the security guy. Smart.
- After the game, the fans all sang a bizarre fight-song-like thing. I didn’t know professional sports had songs.
After the game, all the fans were in a good mood. And they were everywhere. Wrigley Field may be the 2nd smallest baseball park, but forty thousand people in a few acres of space is still a lot. We emerged on the wrong side of the building from where we wanted to be, so we had to walk around the stadium. Excuse me, we inched around the stadium. The sidewalks were packed and we could barely move. It was worse than the Taste of Chicago! Bodies pressed close, and i had a sudden fear that there would be a riot. Maybe it is an irrational fear, but all i could think was “UNC fans riot after they win games and will turn over cars.” And there was No Way Out. The walls of the stadium hemmed us in on one side, while a line of buses blocked the other. They were parked too close together to escape between them.
When we finally emerged, it was only to find a line to the subway that was hundreds of people long. But we followed a few who knew the back way into the building, and hustled our way in. When the next train arrived, we were lucky that the entrance stopped right in front of us and we were able to get seats so we didn’t have to stand all the way home.
When we finally got back to the hotel, we ate some of our leftover pizza and went to bed. It had been a full day.
Tags: vacation
Saturday morning we got up at our leisure and headed to breakfast. We just walked around until we found a likely place. It was kind of fast-food breakfast. I was happy to see they had pancakes, but nothing can really compare with pancakes from the South. Not bad, but nothing special. Then we headed to the subway to ride north to Wrigley Field. The game today started at 12:05.
It was not a good game for the Cubs. The Brewers scored a bunch of runs quickly, and the final score was 11-2. Poor Cubbies. They sang no fight song at the end of that game.
