“You know why it is called the Windy City?” Our tour guide yelled. I thought: does it have to do with the wind blowing across Lake Michigan? “NO dummy!” he said. I questioned whether he could read my mind for a second before he continued. “It doesn't have anything to do with the wind blowing across that lake or in those trees! People from Chicago like to talk! We are a winded bunch” He grinned – spilling over with pride. I could tell this tour was going to take a while. We had made it 2 blocks in 1 hour. I regretted not stealing more oranges and muffins from hostel's free breakfast and making a lunch out of it. This was going to take a while.

running trains all over the city

Our guide volunteered to give free tours to hostel guests in Chicago. He was a native Chicagoan and he liked trains. He worked for the trains. His dad worked for the trains. He had 6 cousins working for the trains. Did you know about ½ the train freight that passes through America passes through Chicago? Did you know that there are more train lines running through Chicago than any other American city? Did you know that part where Tom Cruise scores on the train in Risky Business takes place on the L in Chicago?  Our guide knew his trains. Now I know mine and you know yours.  I assume Chicago has so many trains you could practically run a train on anyone at any given time – just picture it. Everyone here is just so used to them that running trains on anyone is perfectly acceptable behavior and know one feels a thing. 

Personally I was still a little bitter about the conducter of the commuter train telling me my bike was prohibited from getting on and saying it was too fat to fit anyways.  It took way to long consuling my bike in the East Chicago trainstation in the early morning hours; letting it know that it wasn't fat but merely voluptuous with its saddle bags. There was absolutely no reason why I had to stay with the hostel tour of downtown, but I did.  I simply chose to because 2 hours of sleep in the train station 8 miles from a city (Gary, Indiana) competing for the title as the world's most homicidal per capita had wrung my brain dry of any and all effort to think for myself. You could have convinced me that huffing paint was a form of time travel and I would have believed you. I was bored and the only thing keeping me somewhat alert was the metallic tasting coffee I chugged earlier for a caffeine fix. Eventually the morning tour ended just in time for a late lunch; Ryan and I ate the rest of the left-over pizza we snagged from the dining room earlier that morning.

Throughout Chicago there are so many small neighborhood festivals going on. One day we hung out at the Retro on Roscoe festival in the North Center area of Chicago. It was a street party with a $5 cover charge. There were, BBQ food, beer, craft peddlers, leashed dogs, leashed kids, and three performing stages: east, center, and west. It became apparent that as we moved west the target audience age for stage performances decreased. We should have stopped at center stage where all the apathetic teenagers listened to fat, sweaty tenors sing Blink 182 covers and talk about how parents just don't understand, but it was too late. I was gridlocked by baby carriages in front of the west stage, without a beer, and signing along to songs like, “the monster goes Raarrgh!” My high was wearing off and I didn't want to buy $5 beers. I kicked myself for not bringing my flask to flavor the free samples of SoBe being handed out, but settled for vowing to pick up a 6 pack for the show going on that night in Millennium Park.

Classic car at Roscoes

Around dinner time Ryan, myself, and our new friend Robert went to Millennium Park to eat our beer (dinner) and watch a dancing exhibition. Now I would never admit to buying alcohol for minors except if the minors come from a place where they are legally allowed to drink – as was the case with Robert from Germany. We drank and watched tap dancing groups perform to a Jazz trio. It was a beautiful late afternoon. That enchanting time when the buildings lit up but twilight still hugs the sheltering sky, and you don't even feel the mosquitoes biting your legs until you wake up the next morning scratching your ankles until they bleed. The park was bustling with activity. To get out and see so many people doing something besides watching a screen (computer/television/movie) is refreshing because it lets you know that there is still an appreciation for live performance art. After the show the three of us walked around the park and took photos. Chicago is a very photogenic city. It is also the birthplace of the skyscraper. It is also considered by some to be the most American of America's big cities because its rebuilding after the fire of 1871 symbolized America's hard work ethic and determination, and the city where Hugh Hefner founded Playboy Magazine. I only know and share all this trivia with you because Chicago is rich in history and people like to talk here. 

Besides the small festivals, the different neighborhoods in Chicago keep things different and interesting. One day we went on a tour through Pilsen – a highly Latino neighborhood. The local high school, Benito Juarez High School is 92% Latino and protected by statues of Aztec warriors and El Tigre: Emiliano Zapata. I think a lot of the locals were confused why a group of 20something year old travelers would invade their peaceful neighborhood during a Thursday day, but for me the answer was simple: Mexican food. It has been way too long since I have had some great authentic Mexican food, and I thought this would be a great place. I started by getting sugar encrusted sweet breads from the bakery. While I ate and snapped photos of the murals painted all over the brick buildings with a piece of bread in my mouth my two friends from Mexico City, Guram and Juan, taught me how to play with Spanish vocabulary and sexual innuendo in Spanish. It was all fun and games until they told me their would be a test on my skills later.  A little later the 15 or so of us on the tour were seated at a nice restaurant for lunch. The food was cheap and okay, but Guram and I agreed that it lacked the full flavor and spice of really good Mexican food. It tasted like Mexican food made for gringos. After lunch our tour guide dropped us off at Mexican art museum and took off to take care of other things. We wrapped up the museum fairly quickly and headed back to the hostel.

Los Mexicanos: Guram y Juan

Staying in cities is a lot different than when we ride without any sense of where we will be sleeping at night because our stay is usually so planned out. The easy access to the Internet and the amounts of information available makes planning out a day or two's activities way too easy. I realize that while plans provide security and comfort, they also at times can feel like shackles holding you down when something unique tells you to take notice. At times I feel the need to really get out and walk without a purpose until I find something worthy of my attention. One day I didn't have to walk farther than across the intersection of the hostel. Outside was a evangelical group of Christian protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church announcing things on their shirts and signs like: “America is Doomed,” “Jews killed Jesus,” “God hates fags.” I don't think it would have been worthy of my attention except for the fact that their was another group anti-demonstrating against the cult and claiming to be from the best church of God. There was also a joyous gay guy looking for another gay man so they could make-out in front of the sign holders. Below is a picture of the anti-demonstrators signs.

The whole protest started turning into a circus. Cops were posted to make sure that nothing got out of hand, but it didn't stop some old lady from stopping her car in a traffic lane and jumping out to tell the church they offended her deeply. She was getting a ticket written for her, the happy gay guy was still prancing around looking for a partner, and old senior citizens were wondering what the hell all the fuss was from across the street as they tried to enter the Don Rickles show at the theatre.

Chicago is like every other city that we have visited on this trip in respect that we end up staying longer than we originally set out to. A 3 day stay will turn into 5 and then into 7 in no time. There is just too much to see. Chicago is just too much damn fun. I am under the theory that Chicagonians squeeze all fun possible out of summer, because the winters can be so miserable. In our week long stay we have managed to see a lot, but not even scratch the surface of all the activities possible. When we first arrived in Chicago we found out that the Lollapalooza music festival was going on August 7^th-9^th . Originally we didn't plan on staying for any of it, then later in the week we decided to extend our stay for a couple says and get a 1-day pass for Friday. By now we have scalped our original day pass tickets and bought 3 day wristbands.

We stood outside the ticket stand trying to find people looking for day passes. If we could sell them and recoup money for the 3-day pass we were in the clear. I knew I wasn't scalping tickets, but my body didn't know the difference. Adrenaline coursed through me. It felt like I was about to deal drugs, unload a truck of stolen electronics, or capture a criminal for bounty. So you can imagine how pumped I was when a roller-blading couple from Holland said they were interested in my wares. I didn't want to blow the sell with too much energy, so I tried to play it cool. I know how skiddish people that still take roller blading seriously can be. Soon enough the tickets were sold and the cute hipster girl working behind the guest tent slapped on my 3-day power wristband. Again I think our indecisiveness about attending Lollapalooza made for an exciting obtainment of a 3-day wristband, but there is a level of stress that comes with that half-baked plans and after thoughts.

We now had passes to the event, but no place to stay Saturday or Sunday night. The hostel we were staying at was completely booked up. As the days flew by and the event started to draw closer I had started to notice that the makeup of hostel guests started to change. When we first arrived at the hostel it felt like over half the rooms belonged to Nigerian soccer clubs. Now every African has been replaced by a plethora of rockstars wearing tight jeans, facial stubble, plastic coated neon colored shoes, and aviator sunglasses. The place is so amazingly hip and full of its own shit that I expect Kanye West to roll through the door with a train of Dulce & Gabana luggage in every color of the rainbow behind him – bitching about how they lost his reservation or double-booked his room. That all being said, I cannot act like Ryan and I and all our new friends are above the elitist/hipster circle jerk. I mean, all of us have magic 3-day power wristbands, talk about how progressive so-and-so band is to the music of our times, and the X-large child's t-shirt I bought from Walgreen's fits ever so snuggly on my man-child torso.

MarcusIn all honesty Ryan and I planned on trying to stay illegally in the rooms of our Mexican friends here at the hostel, but then our Chicagonaught guardian angel and his girlfriend came to our rescue – Marcus Moore of Yojimbo's Garage and Nicole Kemerer. On the first day of our stay in Chicago we brought our bikes to Marcus' shop to get some maintenance done on our bikes – new cassettes, chain rings, chains, and handlebar tape. In a couple days we were back in the shop picking up our bikes and spending the afternoon talking about any and everything we could think of. Marcus told us about some track racing bike event going on Thursday night, and Ryan and I played with the idea of meeting up and going to the races. Eventually we passed on our chance to go see “hipster nascar,” but like bums we called up Marcus late on Thursday afternoon, our only native Chicagoan contact to see if he knew any place we could crash at on Saturday and Sunday since we decided to stay the weekend for the festival. In an hour or two Marcus called us back and let us know that his girlfriend was leaving town and it would be fine if we slept at her apartment. It was a godsend. Nicole and Marcus had and continue to be such great ambassadors of Chicago to the two of us. In some serendipitous way Ryan and I went from turning our 1-day passes into 3-day passes and receiving a place to stay in all of 1 hour of “doing” and 1 minute of planning. We were lucky.

In order to get into the spirit of things I was scraping for a way to fit in with the festival crowd. I had already blown my hipster chance of seeing fixed gear bikes travel really fast around a track, so the only possible way I could still get excited enough to side-pipe my tight jeans with a raging hipster hard-on was to go to the Apple Store and watch Passion Pit and Chairlift make me nod my head and stare at my neon shoes with a post-neo-retro-new-wave music set. Where did I put my iPhone?By the time I got to the store I not only realized cut-off mid-thigh jean shorts and yacht deck shoes didn't go with the sterile white décor of the Apple Store, but that the free concert was over. I only had a few options left at this point. I mean, I could always resort to my fall back hip activity and go walking around town listening to The Decemberists on my iPod, drinking whiskey out of my bike company flask, and shooting night photos, but I had already done that earlier this week. I knew that being global and multi-cultural was pretty hip, but Ryan and I already missed our chance earlier in the day to learn salsa dancing basics in the park. I was left with only one option: I went to a bar where hostel guests received a free drink, flirted with foreign women until I exhausted any further progression in our relationship, and went back to the hostel with a smug grin on my face – typing away the night, editing photos, listening to The Decemberists, and stealing drams of whiskey from my flask.

Today is the start of the festival. With our wristbands we are marked. The trains will be here soon to run all of us away to the soylent green treatment plants, so the not so hip crowd can have all the coffee shops, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and bike lanes to themselves.