Birthdays and College Football in Chicago

Last weekend I went to Chicago with a group of friends to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday. The trip was actually a surprise for the guest of honor. His wife, with the help of others, planned the whole trip without his knowledge. Thursday begin with him getting unexpectedly taken out of school (as a teacher) by his wife and told he was going to Las Vegas. He didn't realize what the real plan was until he showed up at the airport and saw all of us standing around wearing Chicago shirts and UCLA hats. He was still confused, not knowing, like most of us, that South Bend, IN, where Notre Dame is, is only a two hour drive from Chicago. We were all worried he would be dissapointed because earlier he said that the last place he'd want to be, having graduated from UCLA, is at the Notre Dame game.

So after a two hour flight delay, we were on our way to Chicago. The flight there is relatively short, but flying is never fun when your seated in cramped quarters with zero leg room. Once at Chicago, be got our luggage, rented our car and drove to the hotel, which ended up being about ten miles south of downtown Chicago. As we checked in, they asked us if we were here for the marathon. Before we could answer, some man hanging out in the lobby said "Do they look like they could run a marathon?" Well thanks a lot. Not being in the best of shape, we all had a good laugh.

We managed to change our room to a suite, which gave us one more bed, however, we knew something was wrong when we smelled something "funny" coming from one of the rooms on our floor. It was too late to change hotels, since the whole trip was purchased as a package deal through United Airlines, so we made the best of the situation, and besides, the hotel was only a place to sleep. So we then took a cab, with a drive who was talking the whole time on his Bluetooth enabled cell phone, to the Rush and Division area of Chicago. We were ready for food, and ended up asking a couple of police men who were standing around talking where a good place to eat was. They directed us up the road to an Irish pub which was packed with people and had a menu that was quite different than what I'm used to in San Diego. The food and beer were excellent, and after walking around some more and hitting one more bar, we were all tired and took another taxi back to the hotel. We took a lot of taxi's and only drove the car once on the trip.

On Friday we got up semi-early, for this was our day to spend in Chicago. We stared off by wandering around aimlessly before we agreed to go to Wrigley Field. We asked directions on how to get there and eventually we ended up on the Red line train. This train stops right next the park. Since the season for the Cubs was over, all we could do is walk around the outside of the stadium. At this point I began to realize just how many people were walking around with UCLA gear on. Apparently we weren't the only ones who traveled from Southern California for the big game.

Since Kevin had been to Chicago before, and he knew the "happening" places to be. We stopped in at Murphy's for our first beer of the day. On game day, this bar is packed, but today there were less than 10 patrons there. So we looked around, drank an Old Style beer, which is popular there, and continued walking around the park. Soon it was time for lunch. There are many good places to eat in the neighborhood, which is lined with bars and resturants. We wanted some Chicago style deep dish pizza, and found it a Sluggers. I must say that the pizza was one of the best I'd ever had. Loads of cheese, sausage and pepperoni made this one tasty lunch, plus a bucket of wings and more beer to wash it down. This bar too was not busy, but somehow almost everybody there was wearing UCLA clothing once again.

Our plans for the night included reservations at a famous steak place called Gibson's Steakhouse. We had several hours to kill until our reservations, and since it was too for to go back to the hotel to recover (by this time we were all getting tired with all the walking), we headed to the Sears Tower for a trip to the top floor. The wait wasn't that long, but they make you watch a movie about the history of the building. I thought it was interesting that they made no mention of the Twin Towers. The elevator takes you to the top in one quick ride. At the top, the observation area gives you a full 360 degree view of Chicago. They skies were clear and I took many photos, however, they are all taken though the window, so reflections can been seen. Once we had our fill of the view, we went back down and then ended up a an off track betting place. We killed an hour by betting on horse races. When it was time for our reservations, none of us were hungry, so we canceled them, hoping we could still get in later. We were lucky enough to arrive at 6:30 and only have to wait for 20 minutes for a table. Now this is a high class establishment, and everyone was dressed up. We come waltzing in with jeans and casual shirts since we didn't want to go back to the hotel to change. However, clothing didn't really matter. Service was excellent, as was the very expensive steaks. They only bad remarks I'd give the restaurant is that is was too crowded and noisy. It was a task to walk from our table to the bathrooms. The dining room was packed, and you had to wait for the waiters to move so you could weave your way around the tables. This dinner almost did us in for the night, but we managed to venture into one more bar for the night. It was a Friday and all the bars were full of business men and women who just finished a work week. We somehow met someone there who knew my friend's wife (it is a small world), talked to some locals, and then headed back to our wonderful hotel so we could get some sleep for the big day ahead.

The alarm went off at 6AM (well, actually, my alarm didn't work but I was awake) and we were on the road by 7. After much debate, we choose to drive to South Bend instead of taking the train. Our original plan was to drive, but then we were told traffic was a nightmare and the train was better, so we were going to take the train. These plans changed many times before we pretty much all agreed to drive, after all, we did rent a car. The drive there on the toll roads only took two hours, and since we got to Notre Dame so early, there was no traffic. The parking lot was huge, and shuttles took you to the stadium. We had plenty of time before the 2PM kickoff, so we wandered around the campus, taking pictures. This one of us was taking by a man who really didn't know how to use a camera, and the photo is slightly blurry. Before long, we walked to the only place on campus that sold beer. We were early so the bar wasn't very busy. We bought some beer, food and watched college football on the large screen TVs. Our only plan we had before the game was to hook up with someone's tailgate party. My friend's wife got us invited to a tailgate party through connections at her work. Unable to reach the guy on his cell, our plan was to walk around the parking lot, yelling his name out. Now, this was a huge lot with many people and parties, but we had no other choice. Along the way, we made friends with other UCLA fans, and bummed beer off them. We continued to wandering around, yelling the name of some person we didn't know, when someone actually said "Are you looking for so-and-so?". Unbelievable, we found our party. We were offered beer and food and everybody was very friendly. In fact, I must say that all the people we encounter in both Chicago and South Bend were very friendly. I have never been to the Midwest, but I was told that they are all like this. Even the overwhelming number of Notre Dame fans there treated us with respect, despite the fact that we wearing UCLA hats and shirts. I actually was wearing neutral, non-descript clothing. It was supposed to be cold and perhaps rain, but it ended up being mild and sunny the whole day. I didn't even wear my two jackets until the sun went down.

About 45 minutes before the game, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed to the stadium to find our seats. They were located high up in the endzone section, but we still had a good view. Unfortunately, they were bleacher seats, making them more cramped than the airplane seats. The stadium was filled to it's capacity of some 80,000 screaming people, with about 5,000, I'd guess, being UCLA fans. We were rooting for UCLA, but like I said, the Notre Dame fans in our area didn't care and thought it was neat that we were hear from California to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday. Now my title of this blog says "Birthdays", we were here for Steve's, but my 40th was the previous week, and since I don't have a wife to throw me a surprise party, my friends were nice enough to celebrate my birthday as well. There, that's my plug for me. Anyways, as the game went along, and UCLA led most of the way, we thought that they were going to win. And they were winning with less than one minute left in the game, but then Notre Dame scored a winning touchdown on a drive with just three passes down the field. The stadium went nuts. It was the loudest I'd ever heard people scream. I almost had to cover my ears! And we, Steve most of all, were crushed. We filed out of the stadium, and except of one 10 year old kid, no one was mocking us or other UCLA fans.

Since we knew traffic would be bad, we walked back to the bar for more beer. After an hour, we decided to drive back to Chicago before it got too late. The trip back seemed to take forever, and traffic backing up at one toll booths didn't help. We stopped at a Hardee's for a burger along the way, and once at the hotel we crashed in our beds. What a fun-filled yet exhausting day. We felt like we packed one weeks worth of fun in less than three day.

The alarm went off at 5AM, and we got to the gate just as the last people were boarding the plane. It was funny, you could tell who at the airport was at the game because they all had sunburned faces, as did we. The one nice thing about flying home is that you get your two hours back. We landed in San Diego at 10:30 AM, just in time to see the Chargers well on there way to loosing against the Chiefs.

I had always wanted to go to Chicago, and now that I have, I'd like to go back. However, since there are other cities on my list of cities to see, such as Boston, I don't know when I'll make it there again. But add me to the list of people who have nothing but good things to say about Chicago and the people who live there. Would I like to live there? Probably not - it is too cold in the winter.