Shit You See in Chicago

My latest absence can be attributed to the short jaunt I took to Chicago accompanied by my baby, my boyfriend, and my best friend. We went to Chicago to visit some friends and get in a little mini vacation. Given that none of us currently live in a large city and it has been many years since any of us has, we found ourselves amused at some of the sites that can truly only be seen when in a large city, namely, Chicago. So whilst in the car navigating our way through the maze of one-way streets and numerous speed humps we came up with a little list of "Shit You See in Chicago."

So today I thought it might be fun to share some of that list with you all! First on the list is: Rims on cheap, broken down, or completely average cars like Kias. Why people feel the need to put rims on cars at all is beyond me, but to put them on junk cars that are apt to combust at any minute or cars that are incredibly unremarkable is just silly. Newsflash--the rims aren't doing anything for you or your car except making you look like an idiot!

#2 on the list was Golden Angel, Apple, or Nugget pancake houses. Our first night in Chicago we were en route to The Bad Apple Bar (4300 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago-I highly recommend it) when we saw a Golden Angel Pancake House. At first we kind of laughed because of the name--Golden Angel? Seriously? But then our friends told us that not only were there Golden Angels but there were also Golden Apples and Golden Nuggets. We assumed that the other "Goldens" had differing menus. For example, Golden Nuggets would sell greasy burgers and fries. We were, however, wrong. All the "Goldens" are just pancake houses with different names. Now why would anyone want to go get pancakes from a place called the Golden Nugget?  Oh,Chicago.

Number three was hipster coffee shops. One in particular was called the Wormhole and there was absolutely no signage on it. It was just a dark gray store front with windows in the middle of a rather posh neighborhood. You know how there are exclusive places where you have to just know in order to find it. The Wormhole is one such place. You had to just know it was there or else know what you were looking for. We went inside and had some delightful lattes no thanks to grouchy, overly serious, pretending-not-to-care-about-anything baristas (or is it baristos since they were all guys?). Funnily enough one of the baristas with several painful looking piercings had enough humanity to smile at my baby and play peek-a-boo. Unfortunately, Alex isn't used to self-mutilated men and took no interest whatsoever.

One last thing on the list was drivers who actually knew how to drive and handle all the bike traffic and bike commuters. There is an abundance of these in Chicago and the drivers there thankfully know how to handle it all because they let them into lines of traffic and understand their signals. My friend said that if you were to try some of the stunts that the Chicago bikers do in Madison (where she attends school) there would be an insanely high death toll of bike commuters because Madison drivers just don't know how to handle bikers.

Adversely, one thing you can never see in Chicago is oncoming traffic. All the streets are jam-packed with cars and attempting to make a left turn onto a busy street is near impossible given the poor line of vision.

One last little shout-out goes out to Roscoe Village Bikes. They are a fantastic little bike shop in Roscoe Village (2016 W. Roscoe Street, Chicago). Our good friend works there as a bike mechanic and introduced us to the shop! They were all super friendly and good-natured! If you are ever in Chicago and in need of cycling supplies head to Roscoe Village Bikes! Also, congratulations to owners Leslie and Alex on the upcoming birth of their baby!

Thanks for having us Chicago!
Kate :)