Finding a new home is no easy task, especially when you are looking for one in a new city where you aren’t familiar with the neighborhood. Michael and I spent the first weekend in August looking for our new humble abode. His dad took us around on Sunday and showed us some areas of town where it would be close for me to walk to the train to get to work, and easy enough for Michael to hop on the highway to head out to his new office in Oak Brook. We settled on the West Loop thinking that would be the best spot for us.

That evening, after dinner, we met a young guy who over heard our conversation about apartment searches. He just so happened to be a Realtor and offered to show us some places the following day. “What luck!” we thought. I took the afternoon off and we met up with our new guide. He showed us 3 places, all high-rises in the loop.

High-rise #1:
It was clean and had a nice view of downtown, but it had a really small balcony and was very cramped. It sort of made me feel claustrophobic and we would have been on the 14th floor. Something about having to go up and down with the dog didn’t appeal to me. NEXT!

High-rise #2:
I almost immediately nixed this one. I could tell by the location that I wasn’t going to like it. We went up to check out what would be our unit on the 4th floor and I quickly confirmed my original thoughts. It sat right next to the train and was on the same level as the train. I could see it zoom by! Everyday hearing a train continuously shoot by did not agree with me. How would we sleep!? NEXT!

High-rise #3:
Super dog friendly, great view, huge balcony, spacious, but something still wasn’t right.

I don’t like the high-rise life and neither does Michael we realized. What were we to do!?!

Sigh… I know coming from our home in Houston I would have some problems finding a spot I truly loved, but I had prepared myself for an apartment and recognized that it wasn’t going to be anything like what we were used to. I knew all this, but I just figured that when I saw one I would just know that it was it. None of these made me feel that way and I was stressing out a bit just because we were leaving the next day and wouldn’t have another opportunity to come back and look. I hated the thought of having to rent something without seeing it first and I started to get anxiety about us being homeless. We had to be out of our house by the end of the month!

Just when I started to have a panic attack, Michael’s dad tells us his friend owns a few buildings and he’d give him a call to see if there’s anything open we could see. His friend tells us to meet him at his office in Wicker Park which sits on top of an old bank – very cool. We walk over to the building which is adjacent to his office and we walk in so he can show us a unit. He opened the door to unit #1 and it was like a scene out of a movie where the door is shining white lights, it was truly magical. I whispered to Michael, “Now I can live here”. He turned to me and said, “Oh yeah”. With it’s high ceilings, beautiful wood floors and granite counter tops, we were in love. I was right, when you find the right place, the feeling of “this is my home” rushes over you.

Fearful to hear the price tag on it since the prior places were higher than we had anticipated and weren’t remotely as attractive as this place, I was shocked to learn it ran about the same as the others. I guess things are a bit more expensive in the Loop than they are in Wicker Park, at least from what I saw.

We hadn’t really thought about Wicker Park as a place to live, but driving around it after we sealed the deal on our new place, we realized it fit us perfectly. Its a little hipster area with tons of great bars and restaurants for us to visit. I can’t wait to start exploring!

As most of you may not know that I have been commuting back and forth between Chicago and Houston (and currently still am) since May 1. I will officially move up to Chicago at the end of August with my little family (Michael and our dog Petey). The commuting was fun in the beginning, but over time you develop such a routine that it gets old and boring, and you really start to miss going home and doing nothing. I love hotel life, don’t get me wrong. I love to leave for work in the morning and come back to everything organized, my bed made and fresh towels hanging. It’s as if a little cleaning fairy comes and magically does it all (unless you come home early to find a large Mexican lady blasting Spanish music and slowly folding towels on your bed, then it’s just creepy).

Typically I fly up to Chicago every Tuesday morning on the 7:25am flight and fly home the following Thursday on the 6:15pm. In the beginning Michael used to drop me off and pick me up, how sweet right? He quickly grew tired of getting his butt up in the wee hours of the morning and quit on me. Soon after starting this flight routine, I realized that the 6:15 flight always got delayed because it would come from EWR (New York) and there’s always something going on up there preventing the flights from coming in on time. The 5:10pm never failed to leave on time (or close enough) so I started to hop on that one so at least it would put me back home around 8:30, still time to catch up on the emails I missed while in the air.

The rest of my schedule pretty much goes like this:

Tuesday:
Drive to the employee lot and take the shuttle to terminal E. Go through security, IAH sucks because there isn’t a line just for employees to go through security like ORD so I don’t really ever get to skip a lot of people. I’m spoiled I know. On my walk I always stop at Starbucks for my coffee and either get a banana there or if I’m feeling bold go to Pappasito’s for a breakfast taco. Surprisingly good for an airport. There’s a few bagel places but I’m never impressed by them. My sister loves the garlic spread at the spot next to the Pappasito’s but it’s not thick enough. If I’m going to eat bad I might as well go all the way right? I get to the gate just in time to hop on and eat my breakfast before take off. Extra legroom seats are key for my flights to be enjoyable. If I don’t get one I feel like such a commoner, I can’t imagine how I’ll feel when I actually got into first class someday.

When I fly in I take a 40min train to downtown. I choose the train because a cab seems like such a waste of money unless you can get a group together for it. I get off on Jackson and hurriedly speed walk down the street lugging my giant laptop bag (with shoes hanging out), dragging my archaic luggage behind me, and most of the time getting it stuck in the cracks on the street. I look like such a loser. By the time I get to the tower I’m drenched in sweat and convinced my deodorant is no longer in effect. I have a weekly standing meeting at 11am that I almost never make on time because I’m too busy sprinting down the street like a bag lady. After that meeting I feverishly work to catch up on emails, attend meetings and make sense of my life again. Then I drag all my crap to the hotel of choice for the week, usually the Hyatt. I either make plans for dinner or happy hour with my step family in Chicago or go be a hermit in my room and order room service. My step family is what I call all my coworkers that do what I do. We are all just trying to make it in this giant fishbowl so we usually will band together over alcohol to ease our pain. After I eat I might work some more or go to sleep.

Wednesday:
My alarm will go off, probably around 5:45 in an attempt for me to get up and go do some sort of physical activity. This almost never happens and I usually turn it off and get up at 7:30 or 8. I’m not a morning person nor do I try to be. Another perk of hotel life is you have your clothes planned out for you so you don’t waste time in the morning figuring out what to wear. You just open up your suitcase and get the next days set of attire. It’s fantastic! Unless of course you pack really lousy and have no choice but to look like a clown at work. Since I more than likely failed to go to the gym in the morning I walk to work to make up for it. I’ll usually grab a coffee and a banana somewhere along my path and head into work. For lunch I either get something in the building or venture out somewhere close by. The rest of the day is usually the same as above.

Thursday:
The morning is the same as the day before and I don’t go to the gym, walk to work, get coffee, work, eat again, work, then drag my happy ass back to the train station and head to the airport. I am so tired of eating Wolfgang Puck’s food that I never want to eat at his actual restaurants. I get pho-throwup when I think of it because I ate it too many times.

Once I’m back in Houston I take the employee shuttle to the lot (since Michael gave up on me) and start the 25min drive home. I am always low on gas and have to stop at the shady gas station on the way to the beltway. I inevitably have 3 things happen to me: 1. get ‘holla’ed’ at 2. fear for my life 3. watch a drunk guy climb into his truck with yet another tall boy in a paper bag – sometimes all 3 happen simultaneously.

This is my life right now, glamorous I know. Don’t be jelly.

Yes you read correctly, BBQ in Chicago, and I’ll tell you what, it was an interesting experience.

The BBQ places I’m used to are the flip flop, t-shirt type of places, whereas Chicago Q is a bit more upscale. Prices are more expensive than in Texas of course, but you pay for the ambiance and the name.  The Chef is Lee Ann Whippen. You might remember her as the winner from Bobby Flay Throwdown or from BBQ Pitmasters last summer.  She is extremely nice and takes the time to chat with us for 5 minutes or so.  She even tells me I should move into her complex across the street and give her the referral fee!  Very nice woman and probably one of the reasons I’d come back here.

I typically like my BBQ cheap and on a picnic table, but the wood structures throughout this 2-story restaurant located in the Gold Coast is pretty nice.  We immediately got served really yummy BBQ flavored chips to the table and sweet pickles. I hate sweet pickles so I did not dabble in them, but the chips were really really good (so good they had to bring 2 bowls over to us).

Overall the food was pretty decent. I base a lot of how good a BBQ place is on how good their chopped brisket sandwich is.  Michael argues that this isn’t an adequate measure, but I beg to differ and I’ll tell you why. A chopped brisket sandwich is easy to make, yet so easy to get wrong.  Too much sauce, too little sauce, the meat not chopped properly, the wrong type of bun, the fixings not prepared well.  Some people work so hard to get their ribs or meat right that they forget how to make a really good sandwich.  In this case, I did not like that the brisket was in 3/4 inch cubes; the cubes made it very hard to eat and my sandwich just fell apart.  I ended up having to use my fork to eat it which totally defeats the purpose of a sandwich. There also were not any onions or regular pickles in the establishment. I about died! If you know me, you know how I love pickles.  Sweet pickles just don’t do it for me.

I also was surprised to see that potato salad was not on the menu.  Isn’t that a BBQ staple?! I guess I’m just used to the down home Texas style of BBQ and I’m just being picky.

What they did really right was serve 4 very different, very good sauces: spicy, mild, vinegar (my fave) and honey mustard.  They serve them in dishes all their own and let you slather them on as you please.  Michael had the “competition” ribs which essentially means its ribs that have been dry rubbed and marinated longer.  They were pretty good, but I like my ribs to fall off the bone, these just sort of hung out there.  The pink pile in the picture below is a pickled onion and the giant blob is the coleslaw. The coleslaw was pretty good, its vinegar based not mayo based which is the only way I like it.

Competition ribs at Chicago Q

I’d go back for sure, but I guess I’ll have to get used to this new style of BBQ.

Lessons Learned:

1. Texas BBQ will always hold a special place in my heart
2. I need to be more open and not compare things to Texas all the time, as hard as that may be

I had friends come into town this weekend along with Michael, my sister and her husband.  I took Friday off and proceeded to have a fantastic weekend catching up and discovering new places with some great company.

|7/21|
Work went busy as usual, but I couldn’t wait to get out and catch up with my friends that were in town.  We went to dinner at David Burke’s Primehouse. All I can say is.. A-Freakin’-Mazing! Us three girls decided to split a hodge podge of things which included lobster tails, the 55 day steak, and crab legs. Not only was the steak incredible with its savory flavors, but everything else on the menu is! Definitely a must if you want a good steak in Chi-town. The best part was the dessert. We ordered a cheesecake lollipop tower and they gave us complimentary slices of chocolate cake with special messages for each of us. Mine was a Happy Birthday one complete with a chocolate Longhorn on top

Birthday Cake

Cheesecake Lollipop Tower

After dinner we went to this bar called Pippin’s. $5 Keystone Tallboys = Fantastic bar to me! Great night to say the least!

|7/22|
Friday we went to the Cubs game. I <3 Wrigley, the field not the Cubs. It’s beautiful, old school feel is incomparable to some of the modern fields you see these days. They have a person changing the scores manually and that in itself is so cool to watch. The timing this guy has is unmatched by even the best of electronic scoreboards. A must see if you have never been to Chicago. Wrigley field is located in, you guessed it, Wrigleyville. Such a young part of town and so many cool bars. The classic bar is called the Cubby Bear. Now this place gets super packed after the games and is a staple for a newbie to check out.

Wrigley!

After the game and our Cubby Bear experience, we headed back to the hotel to change for dinner. We had rezzies at Carmine’s which is one of my favorite Italian spots. The price is right and the food is yummy for my tummmy. I’ve never had a bad experience here and highly recommend it. Plus if you can nab a table outside (which is first come first serve) it makes for great people watching. Once we had our bellies full, we strolled over to Butch McGuire’s on Division and met up with some friends to finish off the night (incidentally they have really good Bloody Mary’s). Butch’s is a 5am bar so right around 2am it gets super packed with spillover from the other bars that are closing down for the night. Always a good time at Butch’s!

|7/23|
Saturday I had to show my sister Gino’s. I love their pizza so much! They flatten their sausage out so that it is one delicious layer of meat covered in cheese and sauce. I have great love for pizza and am passionate about it, and thus I can whole-heartedly say, that they do this right. The crust isn’t my fave, but I don’t come to Gino’s for the crust, mainly because I’m not a crust person. If you love crust, go to Lou Malnati’s, now they have good crust. The ambiance is always so fun here. People have written all over the walls and tables and there’s a celeb wall with pictures of all the famous peeps that have come through there. Such a fun stop if you are new to Chicago and looking for some scrumptious food.

Gino's Deep Dish Sausage and Cheese Classic!

The Hancock Building has such a gorgeous view of the city for much cheaper than the Willis Tower. You head up to the top to the Signature Room and settle in for a drink and a view. Of course I had to show my sister and her hubby this and they thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a little crazy for my taste as it was a Saturday afternoon chock full of tourists, but nonetheless, fantastic view of the water and the city.

Once we completed that excursion, we walked down to Navy Pier to take a lake tour. My sister really wanted to do the architecture boat tour, which is supposedly very cool (the architecture in Chicago is amazing), but they weren’t allowing all their boats out because of the stormy weather that we had been having. We settled for a regular tour and had a great time being out on the water and looking at the city from that perspective. Once we docked back we walked and enjoyed some mint chocolate gelato and some interesting people watching. There is always great entertainment value at the pier. There were bands playing in the beer garden and an incredibly talented beat boxer. Not that I am a beat boxer connoisseur, but this guy was awesome. I wish I had caught him on video.

Around 5 we went back to shower and change and attempt to go to Trump Tower for drinks on the roof. Fail. Two hour wait, no way! Then we tried the Wit. Fail #2. Finally we got in to the roof at Zed 151. It’s an interesting little rooftop bar atop this cute restaurant, a little small for my taste but it satisfied our need for a rooftop bar. Our plan had been to have some pre-drinks here before our ridiculously late dinner at 10:30 at Hub 51, one of the hottest spots in Chicago. We hopped a cab and went over to Hub 51 where confusion ensued. We couldn’t understand how to get into the place as there were 2 really long lines outside. I mean, what did we make reservations for right? Turns out we could hop the line to get in since we had rezzies, so after a few minutes of outside confusion we walked into the restaurant and then got confused again at where the hostess stand was. We walked everywhere, people were standing everywhere, finally we found it and checked in and proceeded to our table. We are so not cool.

Food was pretty good but for such a hot spot, the prices were really very cheap. Like $15-25 a plate. I had fillet mignon tacos and they were really really good. We sat next to two extremely tall athletic men who either played for the Bears or the Bulls. When I say tall, I mean freakishly tall. Dinner was great all in all, and now we know how to fandangle the system. The best part were the menu notices. Hilarious! If you like clubs and overly priced bottle service, they have a bar downstairs called Sub 51. After attempting a few random bars on the way home (sketch city) we called it a night.

Menu at Hub 51

The second to the last is my fave!

|7/24|
Saw the always interesting, never entertaining, Rev. Jesse Jackson eating outside on Tavern on Rush with a Cubs hat and cheap black plastic sunglasses on. Nice.

Lessons Learned:

1. I know Chicago better than I thought!
2. Reservations are a must
3. If you aren’t cool, at least act like you are

|7/19|
I have the pleasure this week of staying at the Crowne Plaza Metro hotel on Madison St.  Many of my coworkers have frequented this one, and even though I’ve heard mixed reviews about this hotel, I couldn’t wait to experience it for myself. I was not to be disappointed with free wi-fi and a complimentary drink, I’m sold! I came in on an Tuesday evening this time to allot myself time to be an actual human being, not a frantic crazy person stampeding down the streets of Chicago lugging a suitcase and my laptop the size of a small zebra in order to make a meeting I never make.

I checked in, happily took my free drink ticket and went upstairs to my room to change and head back down to the bar/restaurant ‘Diners’ to redeem my drink and eat some grub.  Heading upstairs is when I felt my first lesson of the Crowne, it’s 95 degrees everywhere but the lobby. It feels like you’re walking into a block of sweat.  Awesome. I head down stairs to redeem my drink, however they failed to tell me its for a max of $6 yet nothing is cheaper than $8. Oh well, beggers can’t be choosers, it’s still partially free right?

I then proceed to head back to my room and watch the news. I laugh at the 99 degree excessive heat warning that is in effect and at the cops for arresting someone on the beach for trying to get into the water.  Funny Chicagoans.

|7/20|
Today was another exceptionally busy/crazy day in the life of this new Midwestern girl and I felt like I deserved a little hydration in the form of a cold one after my long day.  After avoiding what I like to call the ‘vortex’ I headed to my hotel.

(The ‘vortex’ refers to a coworker of mine that party’s as hard as he works. It is his goal every time he is in town to find a group of people to go out for drinks and ultimately dinner with. He pays for most of it and encourages you to stay and drink and eat more. Obviously this seems like he’s right up my alley for some after work fun right? Wrong.  I realized rather quickly that if I didn’t pay attention, I’d end up at 2am in an apartment watching him dance and sing to Bob Marley while drinking an $8 bottle of champagne on a Wednesday night. Because of this, I take the ‘vortex’ in small doses.)

I decided to find some food, and since I’m staying 2 blocks away from the area called GreekTown I picked, you guessed it, Greek food.  There’s an absolutely delicious place called Greek Islands a couple of blocks away which I frequented a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t want to be ‘that person’ eating in a nice restaurant by themselves, so I opted for my second favorite type of place, the bar/restaurant.  These are my favorite when dining alone because you have something to do. There is usually a game on or some sort of entertainment on TV and you don’t get frowned upon for Facebooking on your phone.

I hop on Google to get some reviews on some places and come across the Spectrum Bar and Grill. The reviews look good and so I gather it as being a nicer bar style place. The menu is extensive and ranges from salads to kabobs and everything in between.  I walk the 3 blocks down and from the moment I walk in I can tell this place is legendary.  First off, the toothless old Greek man smoking outside when I walked in the door was the owner of the bar.  He follows me in and grabs a menu and proceeds to chat me up.  He’s super friendly and we discuss whether or not I live in GreekTown because he’s ‘never seen me here before’.  The drink prices are phenomenal. Any place that serves $2 drafts five days a week is guaranteed to get me as a repeat customer!

Spectrum Bar and Grill

Turns out they don’t call this place the Spectrum for nothing.  It has such a wide variety of individuals and quite a few legends sitting around quietly drinking and watching the Sox game.  The looks of this place is pretty dive, and if you know me, you know I like to frequent these places, but usually not without Michael or some other type of testosterone driven man. Nobody bothers me and so I settle in and wait for my meal.  I decided upon two pork Souvlaki’s on a stick and an order of small fries covered in Feta.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was (and cheap). The souvlaki’s come with the most amazingly plump pita bread triangles fresh out of the oven.  Well done Spectrum, well done.  The waitress gives me a beer on the house and I’ve just become the biggest Spectrum supporter.  Can’t wait to come back on a Saturday for their live music!

For some added comic relief check out the reviews:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/spectrum-bar-and-grill-chicago

Lessons Learned:

1. The Crowne is not my favorite hotel
2. I’m getting better at managing the ‘vortex’
3. Cheap drinks do exist in Chicago if you know where to go