Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May.  On this day, the US remembers its fellow countrymen who died while serving in the military.  Because it falls on a Monday, it brings about a long weekend, which is thus called Memorial Day weekend.  Not being American, I still took the opportunity and lived a really holiday weekend.  Our weekend started Friday at 18.00, with you might call a Beer Happy Hour. (or to be precise Happy 2 Hour)  I won a two hour free beer party at Redmond’s which is close to Wrigleyville – The cubs’s stadium.  The cubs are one of Chicago’s baseball teams.  I admit, I have been quite lucky since I arrived here.  I’m seriously considering buying some lottery tickets. 

So this winning consisted in the bar hosting me and as many of my friends I could gather for a two hour of free beer.  I managed to gather a bunch of about 16 people, friends and friends of friends.  It definitely was a nice way to start this memorial day weekend.  Following these two hours we decided to dance the night away in some pubs in the area.  This area is called boystown, and apparently most of the bars are gay bars.  I'm not sure if the name has anything to do with it, I'll have to check. 

Saturday I went to a birthday party at the house of some friends, and here I discovered a new talent I didn't know I had.  This involves squatting in a particular way.  I don't really know how to describe the action, but it seems that no one at the party was able to do it except me.  Maybe I should start doing yoga...


Sunday was beach day.  The water was quite cold, but the air was so hot, that it was nice to swim in the cold water.  This was my first swim for this year, and my first in the US.  I also think this might have been my first swim in a lake.  Although I didn’t see much of a difference from the sea I'm used to.  The two differences which I noted are that when you dive the water is not clear at all, and that when you dry your skin is not salty.  I also sunbathed a bit, but made sure to cover myself in a good deal of sun tan lotion (Factor 50).  I want to make sure not to start peeling already. 

Monday then, which was the actual Memorial day I was invited to another party, celebrating the day.  I was out, and had in mind to go, but had a last minute change of heart and decided it would be better if I go home and do the laundry, and some other chores which I had been postponing for quite some time.  So in the end, like a good boy, I used the rest of the holiday weekend to do my chores, and updating the blog.


I concluded the day by gifting my self a nice ice-cream.

Lots to see and do in Chicago

I must admit that I have abandoned the blog for a while.  At the moment I officially have a lot of free time, but I find myself more busy than ever.  Summer is here and Chicago starts waking up.  Like the water which is now pumping into the fountains, (in winter they’re switched off), it seems that air has suddenly been breathed into the City’s lungs, giving it a new life.  All over the city, the number of activities and things to do have suddenly exploded.  Being here I obviously want to experience and enjoy the most of it.  Summer in this wonderful city, with the beautiful weather, promises to be a busy summer full of fun.   Everyday I’m also waking up to the smell of nice flowers of different kinds which are blooming, filling the air with a pleasant scent.  Thus you understand that it is quite difficult for me to sit down and write down this blog.  Still, here I am, and I will try to make two entries this week.

Downtown 

In this mood I ventured a bit downtown, looking for some interesting spaces.  (I'm no longer living there, remember?, but I'm really missing it...)  

Anyway, I want to share with you, the facade of this building which I came across.  

I’ve been told that it was designed in this way to look like a car, because it is a multi-storey parking area.  Could it be that the designers took the motto 'Form follows function" a little bit too literally?   

I also came across this very nice plaza with some nice sculptures.  This space in the middle of the bustling city is very serene, and its ideal for relaxing during your lunch break.  This space is very near to Millenium Park, mostly renown for the bean.  More about this later on though.

NATO Summit

Last week there was the NATO summit in the city.  There was a lot of anticipation for it, and everyone was speaking of it, as if a civil war was about to erupt in the city.  Thankfully though it was very calm, and I’ve encountered no problems whatsoever.  There was an increased police presence, and I know that there were some protests too, but I didn’t come across any.  It seems that many chose to stay indoors, and in fact the streets were almost deserted.  Needless to say, the actual summit was held quite far from the centre of the city, and I wouldn’t have even imagined of stumbling into Obama, or Angela Merkel, although apparently some dignitaries were staying in some of the hotels downtown.

Worst Eating Out experience 

Anyway with Nato over, I was invited to go to a Comedy show, which wasn’t so humorous after all.  However after the show, we were very hungry and decided to go to a nearby restaurant.  What happened here, was a first, and definitely will make this a night to remember.  For the first time in my life, I was eating at a place in which half way through I’ve been asked to leave.  We weren’t doing anything bad, it’s just that the restaurant people wanted to close.  The restaurant (if you can call it a restaurant) is called Phillie’s Best, but honestly I think it was his worst.  If they wanted to close, they should have never taken our order in the first place.  Imagine yourself eating peacefully, and the staff comes to your table and tells you “We’re closing in 3 minutes”, and then switch off most of the lights.  I found it very rude and unprofessional.  I continued eating, but obviously the rest of the food didn’t go down that well.  To add insult to injury, we found a piece of tin foil in the sweet.  One of my friends was livid, and if we didn’t calm her down, we could have easily ended up on the news.  Probably my involvement would have given the news item international relevance, lol.

Anyway the manager’s response was quite baffling.  He didn’t care at all, and even when my friend complained, he himself kept going on with the shuting down procedure. 

Anyway moral of the story: Don’t go to Phillies’ best, Chicago!!

Wonderful Week

Last weekend, I moved into my new home for the next 3 months.  Having no internet access, has made it impossible for me to update my blog on time, but now we're back to business as usual.

I must admit the move was quite exasperating.  Packing proved to be much more difficult and time consuming than expected.  And now at my new home I still lack a chest of drawers and a proper desk so most of my stuff is still in bags.  Luckily a class mate offered to drive me from one place to the other, this made everything much easier.

Anyway, before the move I had a wonderful week.  

All results are out now, and I did very well, and I might have a job starting in August, which means some extra cash.

However the most amazing thing that happened to me, is that I accidentally bumped into three Maltese immigrants who have been living on this side of the world for sometime now.

It was during my volunteer shift at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.  Fate had it that they spoke to each other in Maltese, just in front of me, and the rest was history. 

I still keep thinking at how incredible that coincidence upon coincidence made this happen.  Truly amazing.

Also, being part of a nation which is so small, the odds of meeting a co-national are always very low, so the joy that flows from such a moment is understandable.  Being so few in the world, it was nice to speak again for a while with some co-nationals face to face.  We immediately struck up a friendship, and they invited me for dinner, at this very nice Italian restaurant called Phil Stefani.  I had Pappardelle cop frutti di Mare, which was delicious, especially when considering that sea-food here is a bit different from the kind we're used to in the Mediterranean.  

Good food, good company, Che voui di piu dalla vita? – as one Italian advert used to ask. 

Ponderings at the end of a busy semester

I’m so happy that finally I submitted all my assignments, and I can now re-organize and clean my room properly.  This week I plan to do some proper filing before it becomes too complex, like my filing project back home in Malta, which will happen only when pigs fly.  Mind you that it is quite possible now, with the advances in Red Bull technology. :P

Now my dilemmas are focusing mainly around laundry issues such as whether I should wash my shirt together with my dyed blue jeans or not.  I'm really afraid the color catchers I've bought won't work.  You might be thinking this is a trivial issue, but the outcome may have economical as well as ecological repercussions.  For instance if I wash everything separately, I will definitely waste a lot of water, and throw into the see a huge amount of detergent.  On the other hand if I ruin my clothes, I will loose some very expensive clothing items.  I don't have a lot of time, but rest assured that such an accident would have dire consequences on the global economy.  I'm in fact wondering whether I should call Cameron, following Obama's advice who said that Cameron is his first call in a crisis.

Speaking about ecological disasters, this week the weather was really crazy.  Sunday I was freezing, in fact I wore my coat and Wednesday and Thursday it was so hot, that I went out with a t-shirt.  Then Friday it was back to cold again, and yesterday evening I was again freezing.  I think the temperature varied some 15 degrees this week, going up and down.  If this is not the effect of climate change, it definitely is some climatic abnormality.  And here I'm serious.  I think we need to do something urgently before it's too late.  

Due to the impending disasters, I plan to go sight seeing in the coming week.  I need to experience Chicago as a tourist, before some environmental melt down wipes the world away.  Will keep you updated.