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May 03, 2005
Final Day on the Road
Hi!! Welll!!! Seymen and I had many adventures since I last wrote. I succeeded in my task of taking a picture of the Mississippi, but it's not that good because the railing was in the way. A while later, we stopped in Salem, IL for lunch. After lunch, I took over driving and Seymen worked for a little bit. About 25 minutes out of Salem, I realized that I left my purse at the restaurant...so we had to turn back and go pick it up.
But aside from that little hiccup in our travelling, we made it to Chicago by 7:00pm. We did get a little lost on North Lake Shore Drive, but it was worth it because we drive all the way down the Magnificant Mile. It was so beautiful. We called the hotel, and redirected ourselves. The Drake was AMAZING. It's a very beautiful hotel! We had a "Lake-View Room" so the big pitcture window looked out over Lake Michigan. We decided to meet Vir (my friend from RIT -- We worked in New Hampy together at Aprisma) and Adam (Seymen's friend from RIT -- Seymen was his RA Sophmore year), at the hotel looby at 8:30. Adam showed up first, and we sat with him catching up, exchanging news about the other guys in the group of "Seymen's Boys" (That's what my mom named that group)...Anyway, Vir took a little longer to arrive. I called him to make sure he knew where to meet us and his response: "Dude...The Drake is not my usual hang out...I'm almost there" :-) (You have to imagine him with an Indian/Thailand accent to make it feel like it does for me) :-)
Anyway, when we all were together, we headed out into the "Windy City" (And it was REALLY windy and cold!!) We walked all around downtown and finally found the Brazilian Steak House that we were hunting for. Originally, we thought it was going to be Fo-go-de-Chaos. But we realized that it was Sal Del Carvaos when we arrived. Either way, it was ABSOLUTLY DELICIOUS! We ate so much meat. We decided to forego the salad bar so we could have that much more space for the meats. There were 14 different types of meat. Mostly steak, but chicken, pork, and lamb as well. God, was it good. We all just sat there and ate and ate and ate. We even stopped and took a break, walked upstairs to the bar area for a little exercise, and then came back down for Rapid Round Two of meat!! HEHEHE We ended up closing the place down. We stayed until about 10:30.
Adam and Vir walked us past the Super McDonalds, that has like millions of flat screen TVs and I just can't describe it. It was huge, two stories, HUGE arches :-) We also walked past the Original Uno's restaurant. WE then walked along the "Magificant Mile" with every store possible, including the Apple Store which was all glass. Glass stairs, a big glass Apple Logo on the front. It was very impressive. We then went to the Signature room/longue for drinks. This is located in the 2nd tallest building in Chicago. It is on the top floor - 96th floor. The elevator makes it up to the top of building in about 30 seconds. The only weird part is that your ears pop the whole ride up!
When you get to the top you can see EVERYTHING!! It's just lights that never end. Supposedly, on really clear days you can see three seperate states. It was really amazing. Vir and Adam pointed out Oprera's apartment, the Navy Pier, the Sears Tower (Which is the tallest building in Chicago). It was sooooooo cool!!! Seymen loved it. He sat in nhis chair and kept explaining how he was going to move to Chicago and get an apartment in a building like this, and come to the Signature Longue every night for a drink :-)
We were an easy sell for Vir and Adam :-) THey are continually recruiting friends to move to Chicago. Adam already convinced one of the guys Ben to move. We're going to his going away party when we get back to Rochester,
Anyway, we're on the road again. We just passed through South Bend, Indiana. We have no idea how long it's going to take us to get back today. According to yahoo maps, it should take us 9 hours and 17 minutes...but Adam and Vir said anywhere between 9 and 12 hours. Then we realized this morning, that there's an hour time change somewhere in Ohio, so we have to calculate for that. We are supposed to stop in Buffalo and have dinner with CHrissy and Jake, but we'll have to see what time we get in. THen tonight we have to help my mom re-arrange the basement for all my stuff that is arriving on the moving truck bright and early tomorrow...at 8 or 9AM. Wahooo :-) I can't wait to get home :-)
Posted by beth at May 3, 2005 12:47 PM