Sweet Home Chicago

Last weekend I was in Chicago, back home for the second time this year. This trip was much longer than last, it was six days instead of four, but this time there was much more to do. The reason that I went home was because one of my closest friends, Nicole, got married, thus much of my visit was spent doing things related to the wedding.

I've known Nicole since high school, almost 15 years, and the first adjective that could be use to describe her is, "late". One of my main duties as a bridesmaid was to make sure that she showed up on time. That was actually accomplished, give or take 20 minutes. We had appointments for hair and nails, dropping off dresses and picking up shoes, getting to synagogue, and we even made it to the rehearsal dinner on time just as the Saturday snow storm was icing over.

The wedding was beautiful. I consider myself a conservative Jew, but Nicole and Rudy are modern orthodox. So this wedding was similar to previous weddings that I had attended, but had a few differences. Most of what I was not used to was the separation of the men and women, not all the time, but only for certain parts. The men had bottles of liquor, the women had fruit salad and soda. The men entertain the groom and the women entertain the bride, so there was alot of dancing and singing. But after the ceremony the genders were once again mixed.

I didn't spent the whole weekend with Nicole, Rudy, and their families. I was able to spend some time with my own as well. On Friday morning I had the honor of waking up The Kid (my brother David). I think that it was more of me doing my parents a favor, since it is almost impossible to get my brother out of bed. After jumping on the bed, and poking at him with one of my old foils, he finally peeked his head out and declared, "I have nothing to wear." Exhibit A, to your right, is his closet.

Mom and I went to the Field Museum to see the exhibit on maps. It was incredible. They had over a millennia worth of maps. The docent said it would take about 45 minutes to view, but Mom and I spent about two hours there. I loved it, they had some of my favorite maps there (yes, there actually are some maps that I consider my favorites, such as the "Geological Map of England and Wales and Part of Scotland" by William Smith and "The loss of men during Hannibal’s march to Italy, 218 B.C. and Napoleon’s march to Moscow, 1812-13" by Charles Joseph Minard). We only had half an hour to look at the Darwin exhibit, but that was alright, since I preferred the maps. I hung out with Dad at his office and at the airport, drinking cups of tea. Every conversation with him I learn something.

Ruth was also in town, with Vince, so I got to see them at Connie and Greg's place (east meets west with the Chinese Christmas tree), plus for dim sum in Chinatown. Drew joined us as well. It was nice to see him again. He is letting me borrow one of his bike boxes so I was able to bring my racing bike back to Delft. It was surprisingly easy, though the box is a bit awkward, I did not have to pay an extra fee to bring it with. It is my baby now. I took a long ride this morning, the sun was out, though so was the wind. I was so happy to be geared up and gliding through the wetlands, chatting with Julia (we were going slow since I'm not quite in the cycling shape I was before).

It think that was pretty much my whole weekend. Oh, I did some shopping. Some of it was in the shops, but most was looking through my parent's basement, peering though boxes that I packed a year ago, looking for my shoes that I swear I left right there (not recalling that our home is actually lived in and I cannot expect things to stay put for months). It was a really nice visit home. I got to see some snow, but leave before the storm hit (though I got to watch our plane being de-iced). Time to plan my next vacation.