A Long Weekend in Chi-Town

For the last several days I have been in Chicago for the MPSA conference to present a paper on members of the House of Representatives' voting behavior on environmental issues and whether or not that's entirely based on ideology. It wasn't my most favorite paper to write (it was for my Congress course) and so I'm glad to get back to working on my dissertation. I had noticed a few big errors on my paper that HAD to be fixed before it submitted it so that took more time than I would have preferred. 

I asked Lo if she wanted to come with me because she is from the Chicago area and is typically looking for a good excuse to go home. This first picture is enough to sum up the trip. This is a Southwest flight attendant on a "dead head". He sat with us and gave us drink tickets. His name is Pat-t-yo. No, not like the porch. 

Lo's dad, being the extremely nice individual that he is picked us up from the airport and took us directly to eat. 

The restaurant is sadly going out of business at the end of the month (I can't imagine how, it was INCREDIBLE). They had mentioned they were regular patrons so the manager brought us what felt like the dessert cart.

We went out that night and had a really good time. Chicago has so much so it's easy to find tons to do. And the only thing that we seemed to have on our minds was food. So the next morning we made a bee line to Portillos. If you haven't ever had an Italian Beef from Portillo's... you just aren't living.

 And I got one of my "You Are Here" mugs from Starbucks. My current cabinet situation is starting to have a hard time with the collection but they're fun. And this one is my new favorite.

We traveled all over the Magnificent Mile. I even learned the hard lesson that I can't afford anything I wanted at Tiffany & Co. It was fun to dream.

We also found a hole in the wall Italian place to grab a snack. This is a famous Zeppole. I don't know why they're famous. I just know that they're delicious.

All over Chicago they have these places where you can get a "blow out" which to me says "Lazy Girl Doesn't Wanna Wash Her Hair"-- which was entirely true. It's hard to do your hair in tiny hotel bathrooms so we stopped in. I was there to present... after all...

We went to an AMAZING place for dinner with Timothy (my classmate) and Lo's dad. The place was called Quartino and it was like Italian tapas. Twas tasty.

I went to bed early while Tim and Lo (and my advisor?) went out. I was getting extremely grouchy as I was exhausted from the previous days of preparation for the conference. The last thing you really want to do at a national conference (amongst lots of potential employers) is to make a fool of yourself (and thus your institution). If you're not prepared, you just don't have any business being there. I even got null results in my data... but they were a very well thought out theory resulting in null results.
I unfortunately do not have any pictures to show of me presenting. Sorry mom.

Then we went to a place called Eatily. It was sort of confusing but also awesome. It was like a marketplace/restaurant combo with I think 7 restaurants in a two-story building. They also sold everything they cooked. It was really neat after someone took pity on us and told us what the heck was going on.

And then in order to enhance our cultural experience outside of high end stores and Italian food we went to the Field Museum. This is Sue. She is the World's most complete T-Rex fossil. The entire museum was really neat. I highly recommend it if you're visiting. We even watched a 3D movie on the Egyptian Pharaohs and were shrunk down 100 times so we could better acquaint ourselves with the inner workings of dirt (ahem.. SOIL)

And I don't know if you're going to believe this but after our afternoon at the museum we changed and found a place to eat. We went to The Rosebud on Rush. This was perhaps the best meal I have ever had in my life. I am not exaggerating. At all. 

 We went out that night and I met some insane individuals that were friends of Lo's.... They kept having to explain to me that they weren't from Jersey when I mentioned things like GTL and starting down low and bringing it up. The accent could have fooled me. Overall it was fun though. AND I finally found a Goose Island 312 on draft.

The next morning (yesterday, Sunday) it was time to head home. But not before we ate one more time. Papa Lo came and got us and took us to Portillos again.

Papa Lo is seriously one of the nicest individuals I have ever met. He is so kind and generous and funny. I don't have many friends that I am close to their parents...especially like him.

Overall it was a successful trip. I got some insights for my research that I may or may not pursue towards publication. I wined and dined. I saw new things and learned lots. I am not sure what more I could ask for. 

Posted in: Travel