What a Trip!
I recently got back from an eight-day vacation with two of my three brothers. John, Stephen & I first headed to Chicago, where we spent time with several of my college buddies: Sachin (a surgeon in residency somewhere in town); his girlfriend Rozi (also a physician); Phil (a doctor of chemistry in Dallas); his wife Jess (a doctor of psychology); Crispy (a theatre designer in Indiana); his wife Kendall (director of development at Purdue University); and Darren (an advertising executive in Dallas). You can see that my friends aren’t exactly a bunch of slackers…
While there, we enjoyed beers and food at the following Chicago joints (in order):
- The Hop Haus
- A top-scale burger & beer place with such exotic meats as venison and kangaroo.
- The Kerryman
- A nice Irish-themed pub where we were served by a nice Irish waitress. John fell asleep in a couch there (we’d been up since 0300), causing the staff to think he was passed out…
- Rock Bottom
- Had it not been recommended by my friend Randy Mosher, I’d have passed it up—but the brewer there really knows his trade, and the beers were all quite amazing. I wish I’d gotten a chance to stop in again.
- Green Door Tavern
- Our first taste of Goose Island beer. Wow! They’ve an incredible malty house taste to their brews—very enjoyable.
- Gino’s East
- A world-famous deep-dish pizza joint (visited by royalty, even). It has an interesting hook: the walls are absolutely covered in graffiti; visitors are encouraged to write, paint, draw, carve into ’em. Thus ended Friday.
- Yolk (Chicagoans seem to like single-word names for restaurants)
- A great brunch place.
- Vong’s Thai Kitchen
- Good Thai food. The waitress there thought I was cute, or at least claimed to. This got her a pretty hefty tip…
- Sushi Samba
- A fancy sushi joint. Very strange restrooms: the men’s and women’s rooms are parallel, separated by a transparent pane of glass, so it feels like they’re the same room. Avoiding eye contact is an artform.
- Taste of Chicago
- The largest food festival in the world. This year saw a salmonella outbreak at the Pars Cove booth—fortunately none of our number suffered any illness.
- Gaylord India Restaurant
- Very good Indian food.
- Michigan Avenue
- A mile of shops & stores.
- Navy Pier
- A public waterfront amusement park. There’s a nifty stained glass museum we all enjoyed.
- Museum of Science and Industry
- Home of the U-505, a nice big war trophy.
- Annunciation Cathedral
- The service was 95% Greek, and the sermon was entirely Greek save for the first two minutes.
We also saw:
We then headed for Virginia Beach, where we stayed with some old friends of our parents who own a house on the beach—and the beach itself, which is pretty cool. We visited our old house; saw our old neighbours (still there, 14 years later); went through Colonial Williamsburg; saw some old friends; enjoyed two great Fourth of July parties (at one of which we drank with our mom’s best friend—never expected that in a million years); and visited Jamestown, the site of the first English settlement in the New World—we even stood in the church where the first representative government on this continent was convened!
Finally we headed north to Washington DC where we’d meant to visit the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Unfortunately, the map we printed out had the old location, and by the time we discovered this it was too late to turn around; it gives us something to do next time. We stayed the night at the home of an old college buddy of our parents, saw the Washington Monument and the World War II memorial, and then headed home the next day.
It was an excellent vacation. My brothers are great guys with whom I really enjoyed spending time. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Tom & his wife Emily could have joined us.
