Alright, so Chicago this weekend was amazing. Lets start from the beginning… Mike (a friend from RPI) and I decided to meet up in a city and catch up. After barely any deliberation we decided that Chicago would be the perfect place to go! One of his friends, Brad, currently lives there and was more than excited to show us around. OK! The plans were planned, flights were booked, and we eagerly awaited. I love my new job in Fargo, but the weather this past winter has been a whole new hurdle. I MEAN HONESTLY WHAT IS UP WITH THIS BLIZZARD. This is the second year in a row that a snow storm hit the Midwest IN APRIL. Back to the story…
I checked into my flight on Thursday night and arrived at the Fargo airport on Friday morning, ready for my flight. The events that followed are extremely embarrassing, but I will share them for your enjoyment. You are welcome. Keep in mind that I normally fly standby so this was my first time buying an airline ticket in a while…
I was the only one in the security line and as I was thinking to myself “this is odd, but convenient”. All seemed to be going smoothly but my mobile boarding pass wouldn’t scan. The security officer told me to try again, but again the ticket refused to work. So he sent me back to the ticket agent to have a boarding pass printed out….. Before I got to the counter I looked at my ticket to see what was up and I realized…. I had flipped the cities during my initially booking. Instead of flying from Fargo to Chicago, I was allegedly flying from Chicago to Fargo UGHHHH After a long conversation with the airline customer service desk, and an EMBARRASSING rebooking fee I was finally on my way to Chicago again.
Mike waited an extra two hours in the airport for me, bless his soul <3 We chatted the entire way to our hotel and enjoyed the views into the city. Since we are party animals and wanted to make the most of Chicago we settled into our room and immediately took a nap. We did have a big night ahead of us though since I had bought tickets for us to go watch the Chicago Blackhawks play the Dallas Stars at the United Center! We woke up, got ready for the day, and walked to Stan’s doughnut shop. Stan’s is DELICIOUS. Holy mackerel… Mike got a pistachio lemon doughnut, and I got a blueberry fritter… and both were perfection. We took our food and coffee to go and walked around the town a little more. The Nike store on the Magnificent mile is lit. Each floor is filled with new designs and art installations. Plus on the top floor there is a “design lab” boutique/showroom that displays the newest items coming through the pipeline. COOL STUFF.
From the Nike store we walked to Gino’s East, a pizza place where you can enjoy wonderful foods and sign the walls. Yo, the walls here are covered in different names and pictures from people all over the globe. It is super cool to see…. So check out the pictures! The pizza was superb and we were feeling good enough to head towards the United Center. Next stop: the famous Billy Goat tavern DT.
This bar is the quintessential Chicago bar. Maybe you have already seen it, but here is a link to the SNL skit that made this bar super famous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1tFx5xKrSI Thank you John Bellushi and Bill Murray! We felt like we were launched into another era filled with prohibition, the Mafia, and 90’s reruns of the news? After enjoying a nice cold beverage we hailed another car and made our way to the United Center!
The hockey game was a BLASTTT. Now, I am not necessarily a Blackhawks fan, but I will always root for the home team (unless the wild are there). Not only did the Hawks win, but we enjoyed a live Blues Brothers cover band, ran into Patrick Sharp in the hallway before the game, and explored the United Center. Overall 10/10 even if Mike did floss (the dance) for every goal celly.
After the game we met up with Brad at this AWESOME bar called the Blind Barber. During the day this old timey-looking place functions as a barber shop. During the nights, the back room gets converted into a bumping club with a full bar and DJ. The décor has a homey-mod feel to it, and there is even a coat check so you don’t have to carry your stuff around all night. The music was amazing, the drinks were great, and we had a fantastic time dancing until the wee hours of the night. S/O to this guy who dressed up in a very nice shirt. You could definitely tell he was out looking for a honey. We witnessed him politely asking a female to dance with him, and her response was “Sorry, but I am a bad dancer”. Hahahaha hilarious. I hope both of them had good nights. We then hailed a car home and went to bed!