Tuesday, May 8th. Downtown Chicago
Just to end the suspense, everything worked out yesterday just fine. I arrived in Chicago at 10:45am and took the L train downtown. It took an hour to get to my hotel. I spent the entire afternoon walking around Grant Park, looking at lake Michigan, and going through the Field Museum, which was wonderful. That evening I rode the train back to the airport, picked up my duffel bag, and all is well.
In the process of doing all of that, I must have walked about 10 miles on pavement, and my feet were feeling it. We don’t walk much I Texas. Things are too spread out. But walking is good for you, and I enjoy it, so I’ve been happy to put cars aside for a few days.
The Chicago L train seems to be exactly what you want in a mass transit system. The trains run every few minutes, and the routes are well marked. Hey, if a guy from Texas who has no experience with subways or trains can get onboard, follow the map, and even make a transfer to another line, all on the first try with a minimum of stress, you must be doing something right.
There are certainly many things about Chicago that I could write about - the beauty of the architecture (so different from Texas), the interesting streets of downtown with businesses under the L tracks, Grant and Millennium parks, and a lot of things that “feel” like Chicago.
But I want to talk about the food. I came with two modest food goals. Try a Chicago-style hot dog and try a Chicago-style pizza. I was tired last night after walking through the airport twice, all over the parks and through the museum, then up and down the streets gawking at buildings. At 9pm I stopped in a little diner that had a sign advertising their hot dogs.
“I’m from Texas,” I said. “And I want to try a Chicago hot dog. I hear they’re pretty good."
“You don’t want ketchup on it, do you?” he asked suspiciously.
“Hell no,” I responded. “I may be from Texas, but I’m not a savage.”
I got the male nod, the one that says, “You could possibly be okay. And I’ll grant you that status until you prove otherwise.”
“You want it all the way?”
I thought about this for a moment. In Texas, we mostly eat hot dogs with mustard, or with chili and cheese and maybe some jalapenos. But I’m a big fan of the “When in Rome” philosophy. I can have a Texas hot dog anytime.
“Load her up,” I said.
At first I wasn’t sure that the thing he handed me was a hot dog. I couldn’t see the dog, for one thing. Lord, these people put a lot of stuff on their hot dogs. I ate it; I didn’t dissect it, so I can’t be sure I even know what was in there, but as far as I could tell there was mustard, sweet relish, onions, tomatoes (that was new to me), two chili peppers that I could not identify, and a pickle that was about the size of the hot dog and sitting on top of everything else.
I took one bite and put the pickle aside. I can do without that, but the rest was fine. The peppers were a little disappointing – no heat. But all together it was very nice, I must say.
Tuesday I have a meeting with the folks at Christian Century. I plan to try Chicago pizza. I’ll let you know how it goes.
rlp
