Photons and Abbey

Jools went straight to bed once we were checked in.

She soon fell fast asleep, and I pottered around in the room, catching up on things and writing the previous blog post.

In a further twist, as it being in Chicago wasn't exciting enough, I had managed to arrange to meet a long time Flickr friend of mine, Mark aka Photons Fail Me.

Jools had spent the time since arriving, when not being sick, trying to get her phone to be able to call Mark, but it failed. But once in the hotel room, I had the internet working, and so we swapped messages on Twitter, and arranged to meet at six.

Jools wasn't well enough to come out, so I got ready, and just before six I got a call, it was Mark; they had arrived.

I went down.

Its hard to state how odd it is to meet someone for the first time, and yet you also meet as longtime friends, knowing what each other likes, their backstory and so on.

So we hug, and I say, I need a coffee.

Mark does a Google search and finds there is a Starbucks 160 feet away. It is in the base of the John Hancock tower, which is beside the hotel, the second tallest building in the city.

I have a large spiced pumpkin latte with an extra shot, and soon beginning to feel human again, we walk down the street and the big question is do we want to eat? What do we want to eat?

The area around the hotel is all designer shops and decent food seems impossible, but just of Michigan Avenue is a great piza place, Gino's East, home of the world famous deep pan pizza.

It was two blocks away.

We walk there, wait in line to get a table, the 15 minute wait turned out to be two. We get shown to a booth.

Mark and I order a medium deep dish, meat lovers or something for me. Abbey orders burger and fries, which I think will be actual burgers and fries. But when it comes, it is ground beef, pickles and fries. On a pizza.

The medium pizzas are huge.

I do eat two thirds of mine, but the crusts and last two slices went uneaten. I could have taken the leftovers in a goddy bag, but not sure if it would have made Jools ill just smelling it, so I left it.

We walk back up Michigan, past two young black children sleeping under cardboard on the side of the sidewalk. This is Trump's America. I was the only one who looked at them.

Shocked.

I went back to the five star hotel, took the elevator to our floor, and after talking with Jools for a while, we went to bed.