second city
At the asscrack of dawn tomorrow I am leaving for Chicago. I’m going to Chicago for a conference, and I’m going two days early for a little fun, and I’m going at the asscrack of dawn (on a Saturday) because as a City employee I have to use the City travel agent, and that is the ticket that this now-despised travel agent procured for me. I am staying, over the course of five days, in three different places: a hostel near nothing (because it’s a Saturday night and everything was booked), a hostel near everything (voted Best Hostel Ever by everyone), and a grand hotel with the word Plaza in the name (which the kind people of Portland are paying for while I’m at the conference).During these five days I am planning to see approximately three thousand things. I’ve gotten generally mellower in my old age about travel checklists – these days I’m usually content just to sit in an unfamiliar coffeeshop and read some locally themed book – but I’m itchy for a big city and all it has to offer. So, thanks to the magic of the internet, I have a bright pink folder full of street maps and train time tables. I have a route from the contemporary art museum to the lake, and a schedule for the half price theater ticket booth, and a walking tour of Louis Sullivan buildings.
Portland is a beautiful, exciting place that is just right for my home. But it’s not Chicago. I don’t want to live in Chicago but I’m excited for an injection of Big City energy, clanking el trains and all-night eateries and a lake as big as the sea. I’m excited for a professional conference, because I finally feel like I know what I’m talking about and I might even know someone there. And – not to sound twelve, but here it is – I’m excited to stay in a hotel, because I love hotels, the big bed and the big TV and the little bottles of bath wash, the lobby and the bar and the view. And this hotel was built for the Chicago World’s Fair. So it doesn’t get much cooler than that.
And I’m excited to get on a plane, to figure out the sort of things that airports give me space to figure out. To watch an inflight movie, and to finger the route maps in the back of the plane magazine. I wonder if they will bring on the usual daydreams about Lisbon and so on. It hasn’t been bad, so far, working full time. It’s been different every day. I write grants and make maps. I go to Chicago.
posted by tortaluga @ 3:49 PM
1 Comments:
Yay Chicago!
A Speciall Request: for me, take a minute in the bathroom where you inspect all the goodies. Noooooo - not your goodies. The goodies they give you in hotels. Smell the little bottles on by one and think of me, K? I have not been in a hotel in years. And I love it too.
Mucho besos,
C xoxo
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