I fell in love again.

Well, I'm back from Chicago. It was excellent. Here is the play-by-play (though I will try to keep it readable):

Friday
I took a cab at about noon, got on the 1:02 South Shore train, and proceeded to listen to Sufjan Stevens while reading the rest of Good News About Injustice. We had a bit of a delay somewhere, but it was fine. I finished GNAI (it was excellent) and put on "Chicago" right as I stepped off the train into Hyde Park. Katie came and met me and we headed to her place. She took me on a tour of University of Chicago, which was very nice. After that, we just chilled at her house for a while, and then headed out with her roommates (Sarah and Hillary) to Devon St. It is the Indian/Pakistani/etc. area, which was quite an interesting experience. I've never been a minority before. Those few hours provided me with a lot of insight into the lives of quite a healthy portion of the country. We ate at a place called "The Taj Restaraunt." It was pretty good. We headed home (enjoying the night skyline of downtown Chicago on the way), and I just went to bed.

Saturday
We (Katie, her roommates, and I) got up relatively early and headed downtown to The Taste of Chicago Food Festival. It was incredible. In the midst of taking in the beauty of downtown Chicago, I also got to enjoy some delicious food. After that, Katie and Sarah (Hillary left on a trip) took me to Jamba Juice (smoothies) and then the Art Institute. It was amazing. I saw some of the most beautiful paintings. I realized that Renoir was an absolute genius. Amazing. We left there after a few hours and walked around more. Late in the afternoon, we headed back to Hyde Park. We grabbed some dinner at Potbelly (subs) and went to the campus movie theater to see this ridiculous movie from the 30s. After that, some of Katie's friends came over for a bit. Then it was bed time.

Sunday
After another semi-early wakeup, Katie took me to a café called Bonjour for some French Roast. Then we headed to Wicker Park, the hipster area of town. It was definitely one of my favorite trips. We went to a particularly fantastic used book store called Myopic Books, where I purchased a really cool anthology of American poetry. Oddly enough, the folks at the bookstore had Sufjan's Illinois album playing. So I got to hear "Chicago" while in a hip bookstore in Wicker Park. How cool is that? We also went to an incredible music store that made me discontent beyond belief with Gainesville's music scene. I purchased an album by The Autumn Defense. They are a side project of one of the guys from Wilco. Then we went a place called Swank Franks (is that not awesome?) for some Chicago-style hot dogs. After a bit more walking around, we headed back to downtown Chicago for more exploring. It was a great time - I even got to see the buildings from the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Then it was back to Hyde Park to get back on the train.

I took a ridiculous number of pictures over the weekend. Fear not - I will organize and edit them over the next couple of days for Facebookers and non-Facebookers alike.

Until then, sleep tight. More from me soon - this was a somewhat cursory glance at a massive amount of activity.

Peace,
Sam