Of Science and Slow Service

August 2nd, 2012

There are times in your life when you meet someone or you go some place, and you feel an undefinable energy, a connection, between you and that person or that place. This is what I feel about Chicago, I have been a lot of places in my life but I still feel a connection to this city. It makes it hard to leave every time. Apparently, this feeling was contagious as Andrea and I debated on whether we could stay an extra day or not. After calling Air Miles, and hearing that would cost hundreds of dollars just to extend our stay by a day, it wasn't worth it. We ran through every scenario in our heads and it wasn't worth it for an extra day.

We tried to make the most of the day. First, stopping for quick breakfast at Xoco, celebrity chef Rick Bayless' Mexican restaurant in the heart of Chicago. I think I would liked their lunch or dinner menu better as I was not blown away by their breakfast menu at all. I had the wood-oven chilaquiles, a sort of scramble with tortilla chips and pepper sauce that was decent but nothing that I would go back for. Andrea's Torta was good but not particularly memorable either. Their fresh baked muffins were delicious though, so if you have to grab something in the morning from here- it is the best thing we tried in the place.

After breakfast, we raced by bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. We initially were going to skip this museum because Andrea wasn't super interested in it. Take notes, Ontario Science Centre, this is how a science museum is done. The Henry Crown Space Center alone was very cool- including artifacts from the Apollo and other early space missions, and of course the obligatory space shuttle simulator. The interactive Science Storms exhibit is great for kids and adults alike where avalanches, lightning, tornadoes, and other weather phenomena are recreated in the exhibit. Also, where else are you going to find both a captured German U Boat Submarine and a intricately detailed fairy castle dollhouse in the same place?

We found ourselves running out of time as usual, like other museums, plan to stay here for hours if you want to see everything. We tried to pick and choose what we saw and still found ourselves missing out on a few things we wanted to see. As science museums go, this is definitely one of the best- no matter what age you are.

When we got back to the hotel, we still had a few hours to kill before heading back on the blue line to the airport, so we decided to go to the legendary Gino's East for some Chicago stuffed deep dish pizza. Which is the other variety of deep dish- unlike Lou Malnati's which is more of the Pizzeria Uno basic deep dish style. Located in River North, it is an ultimate tourist landmark for Chicago deep dish lovers. Unfortunately for us, they decided to send half their staff home before an "unexpected rush" at 2pm in the afternoon. It is probably an hour before we even got our family style salad- which was great but it was an hour late. We had to keep on trying to flag down wait staff, as our waiter had disappeared- presumably on lunch break, to get us some food. We had been forgotten.

It took us getting the hostess's attention, who was missing in action for awhile herself, to even get our salad. She apparently had to make it herself. We realize they were busy but there was no attempt even to refill our pepsi up to that point to keep us remotely happy. When the pizza itself finally came, at least 30 minutes after it was supposed to (in addition to the normal deep dish bake times), they were profusely apologetic and promised we would at least get our salad free. The pizza itself (spinach and mushroom deep dish) was very good but the damage was done. Then we got the bill, and the salad was still being charged to us, so we had to wait awhile to get that fixed too. There was such a long wait for tables that a bus full of college students gave us a big cheer as we left the restaurant- probably the most positive thing to come out of the whole visit.

We grabbed our things from the hotel, and headed on the L train to O'Hare. When we got there, Andrea and I were talking about having a Chicago themed party when we got back and I had limited Chicago hot dog supplies back home. The Radioactive green relish and the sport peppers are impossible to find in Canada.

So, I had the bright idea of finding said condiments in the airport like I was always did at the Gold Coast Dogs/Pizza Uno stand. I was a man on a mission. Unfortunately, every Chicago hot dog stand I went to in the airport no longer sold the supplies. We could have probably bought them in Chicago itself but that would have required checking our bags for a crazy fee. Determined, I went from terminal to terminal, realizing this was a bit crazy (i.e. extremely nuts), but still pressed on. Time was running short, so I ended up taking a shuttle back to our terminal but in my delirium was in terminal 2 instead of terminal 3. I had to run back to the gate with little time to spare before we got on the board the plane.

I did make it back in time, despite every possibility that I would not, and we boarded the plane back home.