Tourists...

Neither Pam nor I wanted to get out of bed this morning...but we did, knowing right when we woke up that we'd be late for church. We woke up at 10am, church started at 11:15 (so we thought), and we didn't leave the house until about quarter to 11. Oh well, we figured the train wouldn't take too long...
We figured wrong.
We didn't get to the Uptown Baptist church until 11:30 or so...not bad IF it actually started at 11:15...Church started at 10:30 so we walked in during the sermon...missed all the songs altogether. The train tracks were under construction and the trains had to slow down to less than 10mph so that made us late. Aah well, another time then.
We ate lunch quickly and changed and Ang, Pam and I went to the Library with our proof of residency and got library cards! Such an adventurous and exciting experience! Yay!
That library is 9 floors of pure joy for someone longing for symmetry, order, quiet, clean lines, open space, and of course, more books than you've ever seen in your life. It is the second largest library, after the Library of Congress in D.C. in the US. Awesome. We spend hours in there looking at books, magazines, pictures, open space, and listening to silence. Such a nice relaxing Sunday thing to do for lots of people, I'm sure. From the Library we walked over to Michigan Ave, the Magnificent Mile. I had my eyes open for "The All suite Omni Hotel, located in the heart of Chicago's Magnificent Mile," as Oprah used to say after her show. Didn't see it though...it must have been more south than we started. or north. We didn't cover much ground because of the cold!
We stopped in some shops--a music/symphony store with really really neat music stuff and sculptures inside. Mom, you would have loved it in there....so many ideas for decorating a studio and teaching music. I thought of you the whole time and if I had a million dollars I would spend a lot of it in that store for you! We walked to a tourist shop--and a high quality one at that--a few doors down. I saw sweet things like glow in the dark cards (that would have been awesome for those poker nights on family vacations hey Daryl and Dad?) and tons of post cards, trinkets, tourist stuff, and artsy stuff--notebooks, funky designed stuff. I felt moved to buy some flash cards called "Slang Flashcards" that can teach me all I want to know about Chicago slang. (okay, ebonics but it's a good conversation starter!)
After the shops we saw the millennium park and the shiny coffee-bean looking thing. We took many pictures (especially of me jumping off of a cement planter yelling "Chicago!") and many pictures of us in the city. I like building pictures too so I took lots of those. Ended up with 43 in all, so not bad for only a few hours! We were getting very cold by now, so we warmed up in Payless across the street and then headed back for the train. I'm trying to remember what we talk about during all of our walking..stuff like how we can remember the first time we got in trouble in school and what we were like in elementary school and stuff.
I can think back to a time when I had to go out in the hall in kindergarten because Tara M. lied to Miss Vanderwekken and said that I was the one who put a huge glob of glue on the ice cream container lid, when really SHE was the one who put way too much on the lid. That was the first, and only time I ever was sent out in the hall...and I didn't even do anything bad!
So we got to the train and finally warmed up, went home, dropped off our library books, and Pam and I took a trek out to find a cheap Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Another adventure! We took the train south and ended up right in Chinatown...or a main street of it. There was a sign and everything! We were surprised that some places were still open at 7:15 Sunday night. So we decided to walk down the street until we saw something that looked cheap, but not too cheap, but still good food. We decided on a place with Cantonese food and it had a lot of people inside so we knew the food had to be good.
The service was quick and cute (a little chinese high-school-looking guy) and the food was plentiful and full of grease and chinese/cantonese sauce. We scarfed it down, to describe it graphically :) We both ordered different main items (chow mein/chicken) and then split them between us so that we both got both. Worked well. We left there with another two meals in the take-out container for only 14 bucks! Nice work, Pam!
We came back and immediately had to get started on homework. Nope, we didn't get much done because we had an ice cream social with the folks upstairs and we shared our pictures and slang flashcards with them. Good times--many laughs.
So now it is time for bed...and I've spent all my time writing this blog instead of reading. I should go to starbucks and just read sometime so that I'm not so distracted. Maybe it's just that I write so much in these blogs and it takes longer than it's supposed to. Or maybe I just do too much in the day!
Enough! Buenos Noches!