I Went To Chicago!

ok, so this was meant to be a travel blog, and probably should have written this as I was going along while i was over there. unfortunately i didn't, and although i started writing a massive entry about this holiday, i ended up clicking the wrong button and i lost the whole lot...so instead, heres a brief lowdown of the holiday instead!

arrived after a very early 3.30am start in kingston and 9 hour flight to be greeted with the longest ever immigration queue, a couple of hours later (and after me and tim got interrogated at the desk by the immigration guy), we were in and on our way to Chicago central, and our hotel/apartment that was in the shadow of the Hancock Tower.

First night in and we headed to Delilahs, an awesome punk rock bar. I love these kind of places, and can't work out why they are so rare in the UK. This was a proper punk rock bar - tattooed skinheady bar staff, punk rock DJ behind the bar, cult movies on the TV, dark, dingy. The music was awesome, with the DJ playing everything from well known old punk like X, Gen X, Buzzcocks to things like Poison Idea and old 60s garage punk and rockabilly. We ended up here a few times, meeting up with a few of Tims Chicago mates, and dragging our UK mates that had come along with us.


Second day, and the morning is dark, foggy and cold. The weather in Chicago is mental, and we couldn't keep track of it. By the afternoon, the sun had come out, burnt the fog off and the coats and hoodies were totally redundant. Today we headed to Lincoln Park Zoo which was fab. Saw the usual array of animals - gorillas, penguins, various types of bird, and the highlight which was Spazzbear and her groovy chilled out bear-roomate.

Next, and it was time to drag Tim to my favourite chain "restaurant" and introduce him to Hooters. I'm not gonna apologise for it and don't care what anyone else thinks - Hooters is awesome!

Thursday we had a trip to Wrigleyville, which is where Wrigley Field is situated (as well as a couple of great dive bars and loads of shops). I needed to check this out as i was going to a Cubs game on the saturday so wanted to check where the place was. After a quick stop at The Ginger Man tavern (where we got served by a Lawrence Arms member), we headed over to Kumas Corner and a big meetup with our local UK chums. Kumas is an awesome burger bar. It does the best burgers ever (check out the menu) and was a highlight of our trip. Was just a shame we never managed to get back there before we left. But i do have a nice photo of me and Becki (our waitress) to make up for it!

Friday the weather perked up long enough for me to get up the Hancock Tower and get a good view of Chicago. The afternoon was spent wandering around Chicago city centre, then was time to head to the Cobra Lounge for our first of our replacement Weasel Fest gigs, Danny Vapid and the Cheats. Venue was great - prob took about 300 people, good size stage (so i could see the bands) and the sound was awesome. Had a great night, even though i didn't really know any Vapid stuff - but he put on a great show and everyone seemed to have a blast.

more to follow....