Chicago Overview and Arrival Wednesday

As Di Yin had to give a talk at a conference in Chicago, I decide to tag along to see her, explore more of Chicago, and visit my grandmother. We were in Chicago from Wednesday, March 25, 2009, through Saturday, March 28, 2009.

This trip was the first time I'd spent significant amounts of time in downtown Chicago (i.e., more than a day) and lacked a car. Chicago's atmosphere--the street layout, the design of the skyscrapers, the architecture of the fancy buildings, the way people moved, the way people dressed, the transit system, the selection of stores--made it really feel like New York.

We arrived early Wednesday evening, took the subway to downtown, and checked into our hotel. We stayed in a nicer placer than I'd have chosen for myself--the joy of traveling on someone else's dime (in this case, some funding agency's). Indeed, this place was so nice they had a pillow menu. After dinner, we ordered some. I recall liking the buckwheat because it had a filling like that in a beanbag. It made a comforting white noise when I put my head on it. In contrast, I never could get used to memory foam, whether in pillows or mattresses. Also, the hotel supposedly had a rooftop bar with a pretty view that, sadly, we never got a chance to see.

Speaking of the niceness of the hotel reminded me, here's a link to the pictures I took this day and here's the first picture in the set Di Yin took over the trip. She took some pictures of the hotel room. (I did not.) Her set of pictures from this day ends when you see a picture with a caption that begins "the next morning." I generally left picture taking up to her this trip, so in the following entries I'll be linking to both of our sets of pictures but my set mostly only includes pictures of things I encountered when on my own. Please don't peek at the pictures before I discuss them / link to them.

After dropping our stuff in the hotel room and eating a tiny snack, we headed out to dinner. I wanted to make sure I had the true Chicago experience, and one thing that meant was real Chicago pizza at a place recognized for doing it well. Di Yin, though not much of a fan of Chicago pizza, was willing to go along, and off to Pizzeria Due we went.

The pizza we had was "meh." (For my future reference, on my 4-point scale, the joint gets a rating of 2.) If this is Chicago-style pizza, I prefer the slight Californian variant (cornmeal crust) done by a restaurant in San Francisco.