Monthly Archives: August 2009

First Day of School

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I finally decided to get the first day of school pictures up here. This is of course Patty and Eddy in their very new uniforms heading off to the new school that I managed to get them into. I had some help, of course, but it sure was still expensive what with the cost of books, uniforms, and other assorted expenditures.

I am sure that they are going to enjoy their new school more than they would have enjoyed their time in public school. I still would have had to buy uniforms, and they still would have had to be driven to school every day, so really it is not like I really spent that much more to have them in this school. I know that I enjoyed my time at a non-public school, and really I am just hoping that they come to have that same experience.

Trip to Cleveland

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Amazing what you will do when you get free tickets. My sister Becky gave us four free tickets to the Browns preseason game against the Detroit Lions, so we decided we were going to go. The first step was to decide who exactly we were going to invite. Adam does not really know anyone in Ohio any longer, so that part was up to me. I mean, why waste free tickets?

I called up a few of my friends and immediately got Tim and Derek. That out of the way we all just had to decide how we were going to get there. We decided to all meet here and leave for the stadium in one car. This is because otherwise we would be paying parking on more than one car. We all met at my house around 5 and we would have left right then, but I ran into a little bit of a problem.

See my Browns hat, which Jacqui bought for me for my birthday several years ago was on the floor in the basement and apparently during one of the rainstorms we have had recently the basement managed to flood right in that spot. Needless to say the hat was uncomfortably damp and had a distinct bad odor to it. I put it in the sink, ran hot water on it, and used some dish washing liquid. Honestly, I should have just said forget it and just left for the game, but it was really upsetting to me and I wanted to do something. I left the hat smelling better, but soak and wet, outside on a chair. I figured it’ll dry and if it rains that is not going to hurt anything at this point anyway.

We all left and it started raining on the way there. The drive was a bit arduous, since everyone in Ohio basically drives as though they have never seen rain before. We were using the Magellan GPS, and it gave us another way to get there, so we got off the highway and followed the directions, which actually worked out very well. The street we exited the freeway on only had a few lights, no traffic, and basically we were not stuck on the highway staring at break lights, so I think that worked out fantastically.

We found parking and headed to the stadium on foot, since parking close to the stadium is around $25 and parking about a half a mile away is only $10. Not a hard decision when everyone in the car can walk just fine. Adam had checked the weather report and they were predicting rain, but the only rain we saw the whole time was when we were driving in to Cleveland and again when we were leaving.

The first thing we did in the stadium is head to the team shop and I bought a new hat. We bought some other stuff and headed to our seats. We made it to our seats just in time to see the opening kick-off. Joshua Cribbs ran it in for a touchdown, which was promptly called back for holding, but the entire first half had that energy for the most part. It was a lot of fun as we got to see all the Browns players we wanted to see play. It did not go perfectly, but it went really well. I wish it could have stayed like that.

The first problem was we all wanted to hang out and drink a beer, but the NFL has apparently decided that beer can not be sold after a certain time, and that time is apparently after half-time. Lame. The second problem is that the Browns went with the 3rd string QB for the rest of the game, and honestly none of us wanted to sit there and watch him. We left, paid for parking, and started the drive home. Great experience despite that.

Trip to Sandusky

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This is what my brother asked me to do for him for his birthday. We first discussed going to Cedar Point about a month ago, and it was on AIM. At the time I still had not traveled to Chicago or even completely finished my college courses for the summer, so it was something that seemed very far away. The day has come and on Wednesday morning we woke up early, got lunch packed in a cooler, and started our journey to Sandusky.

We used the GPS unit that he brought with him from Maryland. I could have used my phone, but this seemed like just as good as a solution. I went with the “avoid toll roads” option, because honestly after traveling to Chicago I had just about enough of paying Ohio money for the privilege of using that route. I do not know if it would have saved us any time in the long run, because the way we went was pretty fast. I seem to remember when I was younger that the route to Cedar Point involved going through some towns and generally driving much slower than we were. Either they have built new highways or I just remembered wrong.

We went in and Adam suggested that we start by going to the back of the park. Apparently that is his solution to the question of what you should go on first. We were going to go with that plan, until I decided that I would really like to go on the Mantis. The major reason for this was they have signs in front of the rides now, and honestly I have not been to Cedar Point in a long time so this might not be new at all, that tell you approximately how long the wait for the ride is.

Generally speaking the sign is usually only about 5 to 10 minutes off, and in our experience that can go either way. The wait for the Mantis was about 15 minutes, so we went. We made a wrong turn and ended up at the entrance of the Mine Ride, so we went on that as well. Finally, we made it to the back of the park and we went on the Mean Streak. I really enjoy the old wooden roller coasters.

We went on some more rides, and then headed back to the car for lunch. There we witnessed something that we are pretty sure should be against the rules or have signs posted warning against. That is throwing foot for the birds in the parking lot. See, it does not take a rocket scientist to know that what you are doing is attracting a large number of large birds, you are by a lake after all, that will proceed to defecate and possibly land on and scratch cars around where you are throwing the food. I understand that some people think this is good fun or something, but it just seemed really stupid to Adam and I.

We went back to the park and the treatment we received trying to get back into the park seemed a bit too profiling for me. It seems that Cedar Point employees have been warned about young men in groups of 2 or more trying to beat the system. We were in a line with a bunch of people and the Cedar Point employees were using a wand with a light to be able to see the stamp you get on your forearm for readmission on leaving the park. Well, the line was moving pretty quick, but when we got up to the front they took both our arms and kept looking at it at different angles. I remember I actually audibly sighed when the employee checking my arm actually went to double and even triple checking.

Speaking of checking Cedar Point seems to have a policy in place that the employees that are in charge of the rides have to say “check” out loud whenever they go around making sure you have the safety belt on or anything else that is supposed to keep you in place. Not really a complaint, because personally I am glad that they are taking my safety seriously, just something that by the end of the day sort of gets hilarious. Maybe it is just us, but we were saying “check” back to them.

We managed to go on some more rides. While we were taking a break to get something to drink, having finished all of our Gatorade that I was carrying around in a bookbag, we watched a lady at one of those guessing booths try and get some customers. It was sort of amusing and we decided that we would like her to guess our age. We ruled out month pretty early, because they get 2 months in either direction, which means they get 5 months and that does not seem like very good odds.

We went up there and she had 2 years in which to guess my age and she nailed me. Adam said that the way they do that is by looking at the lines around your eyes. I guess the older you get the more lines you have, and she did spend a moment looking me straight in the eyes. If there is any consolation about it she actually guessed the low end to get the 2 years, and I will take that. Adam changed his mind when he realized that if she was that good at age he might not stand much of a chance and went with weight, which she had said she was not very good at.

Well, she was not lying about weight, but at the same time we get the feeling that there is something about that part of the game that was not completely on the level. See, the thing is we both won a prize, which you can see the stuffed animals in the pictures, but the thing is she actually did guess our weight. She guessed Adam and I at what we really are, and yet when we got on the scale we were nearly 15 pounds heavier. I am of course accounting for the fact that we were both wearing shoes and fully clothed, since I know many people weigh themselves on their bathrooms scales either upon entering or exiting the shower. The scale had us well over even that. I am not saying that the game is fixed and that she gave it to us, but I am definitely suggesting that I would not be surprised if there was not a little magic to the scale.

The last ride for the night was the Millennium Force, which is something of a staple of Cedar Point. It is definitely one of the rides that you have to go on if you are going to visit this park. I did not go on the ride, instead I opted to just sit on a bench and wait for Adam to get done. Some of the rides made me feel a bit old. I remember when the Demon Drop was a new attraction and the line for it would stretch to the front of the amusement park. The Magnum was celebrating 20 years, and that ride to was one that I remember having to pass on one year, because the line was so long.

Trip to Canton

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I am posting all the pictures from the trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the pictures section of the blog, because I realized that it was sort of a special event that I am not going to do again anytime soon. That is, after all, why I have that part of the page. There are over 100 pictures, and honestly I think that most of them are worth keeping. That way I can be more selective for this post and just post the pictures that I really like.

Adam and I went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday, but I do not really remember when we decided to go. Adam is here for the week and I know that we had planned on going to Cedar Point as his birthday present, but this was really more of a spur of the moment thing. I remember we were online Monday night looking at the specials Cedar Point had running for tickets and we ended up looking up the hours and directions for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When you sit on the internet you end up going to all sorts of places.

We figured out that it was definitely open and the hours were long enough that if we slept in we could still wander in after noon and still have hours to enjoy the place. I was kind of surprised to find out that the Pro Football Hall of Fame is actually open just about all year round. Honestly, I wanted to go anyway, and I have always said that I would end up going, but there is something about when people visit from out of town you always end up going and doing the things you never would do on your own.

After a 20 minute drive we were there and it was time to take a picture outside of the building. The outside is not really all that interesting, so we went in and purchased our tickets. We ended up getting a discount, because if you live in area you actually get $4.50 off the ticket price. That is kind of cool. When you purchase your tickets they hand you a map of the layout of the place, and while the building is fairly linear and you would not necessarily miss anything without this brochure it was still sort of neat to know what was ahead.

You begin your journey through the hall of fame by climbing up a spiral ramp. At the top you enter into a room that has memorabilia complimented by video and audio of important games and interviews with people. There are a lot of interesting trivia type things to be found in this room. Such as who the first professional football player was and why a football field is sometimes called a “gridiron”. I think we spent quite a while in this room. It was amazing just to take in all the history.

That section takes you from the mid to late 19th century and just into the beginning of the early 20th century where there still is not an NFL like the one we have today. It is interesting how things are sort of recognizable, but still so foreign. Pictures of jerseys, uniforms, pads, and clothing. The next section is every team in the AFC and NFC displayed on a large stand with the teams helmet in a case. In the middle is the AFC and NFC trophy for winning the conference. We made sure to get our picture next to the Cleveland Browns one.

We continued through the hall of fame and ended up in the room with all the busts of all the individuals who have been inducted throughout the years. Seeing as how we are both fans of the Cleveland Browns we went around and looked through all the names for not only people who we remember seeing throughout the years, but also everyone that ever played for the Browns. One of the interesting things we found was that there were a great deal of players who played a season or two for the Browns, but did not end their season in Cleveland. They played and became big stars some place else.

We skipped the theater, because the video is a recap of the last Super Bowl, and neither one of us wanted to sit through a game where the Steelers won. The last two exhibits that we spent some time with was the “modern NFL”, which is a room devoted to all the star players of recent years with NFL highlight reals playing on televisions, and the John Madden exhibit, which celebrates the 20 years that they have been making John Madden NFL games. This exhibit was personally satisfying, because it carried the Xbox name, and that happens to be my console of choice.

There were other exhibits and things that we saw while we were there that I am probably forgetting to mention. The fact is there is a lot to see and take in while you are there. We spent nearly 4 hours wandering around the place, and while we probably saw everything, you could not possibly hope to remember even half of it. It is a good thing that I took as many pictures as I did for that very reason. The last place that we ended up was in the gift shop. It is interesting, because typically in a gift shop you get something to remember the fact that you went to a certain place, but they had so much Cleveland Browns stuff that we ended up getting some of that. I do not think either one of us got something that just says “Pro Football Hall of Fame” on it.

Chicago: The Road

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I do not know if it is ever going to get boring or ordinary for me to see a big city skyline during this life, but I asked Will about it, because he has lived in Chicago for a year now, and he said “I’ll never get used to seeing that”. Honestly I do not even know if I will ever live next to a big city. I do not consider the city I live next to big at all. I sort of feel the same way as Will about the whole thing and I wanted my last post about my Chicago trip to be what I saw from my car, some miscellaneous pictures that did not really fit anywhere else and just a little recap of the trip there and the trip back home.

I got really excited about seeing Chicago from my car when we got close. Tom Tom took us through the city to get to where Will is, so I got to take in a lot of sites. I was really excited and giddy and had to start taking pictures of the sites, because there was so much around me. I actually had Jo take the pictures, because I was driving and it was sort of rush hour the entire trip in. I think it took us almost an hour to drive the last 20 miles.

I saw huge buildings, I saw beaches with palm trees, which I am still not entirely sure why they have palm trees on the beaches in Chicago, but anyway, I saw trails especially set up for bikes and running. Here they have miles and miles of nothing and they can not manage to have more than one crappy bike trail that goes past a sewage plant, and in Chicago they have miles of trails that go around the city and past beautiful sites like the beach and the docks. I am a little bitter about having to come back home after seeing all that Chicago has to offer. It makes me wonder where else I could live and what they would have waiting for me there.

There is something so marvelous about being in the shadow of all these enormous structures of steel and cement. Something so awesome about what man is able to create. Looking back at a lot of the pictures now it seems hard to believe that it is Chicago, because all you see is water and trees. It really is that marvelous to behold in some spots. I have become a bit infatuated with Chicago.

I took some pictures of Will’s dog Scooter, because he has a dog now. The dog is a mix between something and something else. I wish I could remember, but I have never really owned a dog and so I know that people who do know what “type” of dog they have, but I honestly can not keep it straight. It is an awesome dog though, so it was definitely worth taking a picture of.

This is the hat that I bought myself as a souvenir. I feel like it is a really awesome hat. I really like the Cubs logo. I might even be a Cubs fan now. I certainly have not routed for the Indians in forever. I bought Patty a blue shirt that says “I Love Chicago” and Eddy a Cubs shirt. I did not want to get them shirts from any specific attraction that I went to, because that is something they will have to do sometime. I bought my Grandma a bag of saltwater taffy from Navy Pier. I personally cannot eat the stuff, but she loves it.

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Chicago: Train

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I know that this topic is going to be awful mundane for a great many people, but I have personally never really taken public transportation. I know that many people have, and many people live in big cities, or have visited big cities, so for them this is almost ridiculous and sort of funny that I find this topic so interesting that I would actually take the time to discuss it.

I spent time on both trains, which you do not refer to as a subway in Chicago, and a few buses. It’s the train, and they also call it the “L”, because it is an “elevated” train. One of the things that I learned was that you can use the ticket you purchase for the trains on the buses. Jo and Will were actually shocked that I was not aware of this fact. I tend to find that people assume too much. Honestly, I paraphrased the line from a Family Guy episode when they looked at me shocked that I wasn’t aware, I said “we traded in our plane tickets for train tickets”.

I did not take any pictures while I was on the bus but I did manage to take some pictures on the train, even though I was asked not to by an employee of the CTA. I did anyway, because I like taking pictures. Will gave me a lecture about how I should do what they say, and how there are armed security who will be called on me, and how I will be in jail. I am aware that the whole security for public transportation has been ramped up because of terrorists or something, but I do not really care. I was on vacation and I wanted pictures of something that I found absolutely intriguing.

I took a picture of Jason and Will. I took a picture of Jo. I took a picture of Grand Station, because this is one of the stations that is actually sort of finished. Most of the stations have plywood and a really unfinished look about them. It is as though all the stations are a work in progress. I imagine that is something that they would take care of quite quickly if they were nominated to be the home to the Olympics.

The train was our main mode of transportation for the four days we were there. We mainly took the Red line everywhere, but I also think we took the Brown and Pink line. The Red line is basically the best way to get every where from where Will and Jason live and get into downtown. There are many other lines that we had no reason for getting on, because they would not have taken us anywhere we wanted to go.

I can tell you that trains are probably the best way to travel, because you do not have to do anything. They are also loud, boring, and I know now why many people had books and other things to distract themselves. If I were actually taking this form of transportation to work or classes at a University it would be great, because I would have this time to sort of decompress from my day and get some personal things done. I remember when I went to Kent State University and I had to take the bus around it was great, and this experience was sort of like that.

I really enjoyed my time with the public transportation system. We bought three day passes, which Jo promptly lost on the 2nd day. I guess he had the ticket tucked into his holder for his cellphone and he was using his cellphone. I originally put the ticket in my wallet, and put my wallet in my bag, but that was entirely way to slow when we needed to put our ticket into the machine and go through the turnstile. I ended up putting it in my pocket and I am glad that I did not lose it, because I do have a habit of losing things. I guess if I actually lived there I would get a more permanent plastic card.

One thing that Jo lucked out on was that our tickets stopped working on that 2nd day. No reason, they just came back “invalid” on buses and gave errors at the turnstiles to the train. I still got to ride, because the date that the ticket is good through is printed on the back, but I had to get an employee to let me through sometimes for that last day. Jo had to pay more to buy another ticket, but he did not have to deal with that inconvinience the last day. I was told that there is typically a problem with the tickets on the buses and the trains occasionally. Not the normal tickets that people who live there buy, but the 1 and 3 day pass tickets.

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Chicago: Navy Pier

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Jo and I decided that our next destination would be Navy Pier. As you can imagine it is a pier, so it is by the water. We needed to get from Millennium Park to the water front, but honestly while Jason had mentioned the buses that we should take, I unfortunately did not remember what he said correctly and we ended up looking at a map of bus routes. Looking at the map did not really give us that much information, but we did something that worked out wonderfully. We just got on a bus and took it north.

We knew where Navy Pier was, we just did not know exactly how to go to it. So we started by going north. The next step was finding a way down, because when you get far enough north you still need to go west and the problem is that Navy Pier is only accessible by buses that run streets that are lower than where we were. I am not sure if we really had to walk down the steps to get to these buses, and I am pretty sure we could have found a bus that ran down there, but we did it anyway.

As you might imagine there is not a great deal to do on a pier. Matter of fact we did less than I guess what most people would do on this particular pier. We did not take a boat ride/tour of the city, we did not get on the ferris wheel or any other ride, and we did not watch the magic show that was going on when we got there.

What we actually did was eat Italian ice, walked down to the end of the pier to get a better picture of the lighthouse at the end, and turn around and take a picture of Chicago from the end. This was our last destination for the evening and I have to say that it was a good thing. We were sort of exhausted, sweaty, and we had promised Jason and Will that we would buy them dinner that night so we really had another engagement to get to before the day was over.

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Chicago: Millennium Park

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The first thing that Jo and I did after we had finished doing the Sears Tower thing was head to Millennium Park, which was about six blocks away. I guess each block is about 1/8th of a mile or something, so when we went to calculate our total walking for the whole day we came up with a pretty substantial number. The reason we even bothered was that with all that walking came a great deal of dehydration and fatigue. I believe Jo even got sick at one point because of all the walking and he was drinking a lot of water, but that does not really put everything back into your body.

The other thing that made this day a bit of a hassle getting around on foot was that it was quite hot and humid. Will said that this was the warmest he thinks it has been all summer, and he said that for the most part it has been in the 70’s. We got no such luck with high 80’s and 90 degree weather for the most part. Dark clouds rolled in and threatened rain, but we only got that rain right when we were leaving. I can not even tell you how much we sweat during the trip, but I know that there were two days I had to change shirts in the middle of the day.

We would have gone to see the “Married with Children fountain” in Grant Park, but Lollapalooza was in Chicago this weekend, so the entire park was fenced off. Come to think of it the city was generally more busy than it really would have been due to that event as well. I am sure that if we go again it will be a bit less crowded.

We went down to Millennium Park with a few sites already in mind. Jason already told us the main attractions of the park and so we knew what we were looking for. We started at this map for the entire park so that we could get our bearings and figure out what the closest site was that we were going to see. That is one of the cool things about going site seeing with Jo he really does not want to miss a single site. We ended up coming back to the maps after we had walked all around the park just to make sure we had not missed anything.

I am already going to go ahead and say that the coolest thing in the whole park to see is Cloud Gate, which is not what people actually call it. If you look at it you will realize why this huge reflective attraction is usually referred to as “the bean”. I am sure on nicer days, which is to say days with less overcast it is even more wonderful to see it. Maybe after they wipe it down as well, as people have a habit of putting their hands all over it. I can understand wanting to touch it, but the base was literally covered in hand prints. You can see so much of the sky and the Chicago skyline that I really couldn’t take my eyes off it.

There is a pavilion in the park, but that is for shows and we were not there on a day they had a performance. I saw brides and grooms in the park. I do not know where they were headed exactly, but I imagine they were either getting married in the park, or they had already gotten married and were downtown for pictures. Either way I do not know exactly what the plan was there.

I really could not find the energy to mingle with the kids and other people that were standing underneath Crown Fountain even though I really could have used the cool down. If you can not tell from the pictures the fountain is actually two large pillars of glass bricks and LED’s to display faces. The faces blink, and smile, and then eventually they close their eyes and open their mouth and water comes out. We did not hang out long enough to find out how long it takes between faces, but the face does change. When the faces are changing the water pours down from the top of the tower and soaks everyone on all four sides.

There were some other things to see in the park, but really it is all a bunch of stuff I did not understand. There were some things that were supposed to be art I suppose, and there was this sort of tunnel created where when you walked through you heard people talking about something through speakers, but I did not really care to hang out long enough to see what that was about either. Much like the Sears Tower I guess the final verdict is that if I were downtown already and had someone along with me that had never been there I would most certainly take them, but I personally do not have any real motivation to go back.

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Chicago: Sears Tower

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The next thing I wanted to talk about is the Sears Tower. Yes, I am aware that it is actually called Willis Tower, but I will not be using that name. I do not believe many people will be using that name. I do not know if that name is ever going to catch on, but I feel like it is a shame that the city of Chicago could not have passed some sort of legislation to force the name to stay the same. It is obviously an American icon. Jo and I decided to walk down from the Jackson stop off the red line to visit the tower on Saturday, because that was our free day to roam around the city and do all the tourist stuff that people typically do when they visit Chicago.

The Sears tower is huge. You have to start by waiting in line just to get in line to go down an elevator to, you guessed it, wait in another line. I can not emphasize enough that if you plan on visiting the tower it might not be a good idea to do so on a weekend when obviously there are more people visiting the city.

I do not know if we really saved a whole lot of time, but they informed us that the wait was going to be over an hour and a half, unless we bought the special tickets that allow you to skip the lines and go to the top. We opted for these special tickets, because although they are double the price we had many more plans for that day that did not involve waiting in that line.

I always pictured that when you got to go to the top of the Sears Tower you were literally going to be on the top. I was slightly disappointed to find out this is not the case. You are actually on the 103rd floor, which is fully enclosed and there is a ceiling and everything. I do not know if people used to be allowed, or possible they still have some sort of tour that goes higher than where we were, but that is where we ended up. The whole “throwing pennies off the building thing” seems right now to be more of an urban legend or something from American history.

Once you are on that floor you can look out the windows and take in all the surrounding sights of Chicago. It is very interesting. You can put coins in those machine that allow you to look out through a telescope basically, but I did not really feel like doing that. I just wanted to take a bunch of pictures and look at everything around me.

There is a gift shop at the top, but I did not get anything. Instead I just focused on taking pictures and standing in one of the glass floors they have that hang over the side of the building so that you can look straight down. They have three of these enclosures and some people take pictures from one where they can see the people in the next one over, because they want the picture to look like they are “falling”, since they are sort of “outside the building”. I have to warn you though that if like me you start to feel a bit sick it is because, as I was informed, the building sways in the wind so many inches in either direction, and that is what will make you feel a little queezy. This is of course nothing to say of looking straight down at the street from so high up.

Was it worth it? Would I do it again? Yes, it was one of those experiences that you have to do at least once. I will probably never have a feeling that I have to do it again though. I think that this is one of those things you only have to do once in a lifetime. It is sort of a shame that some people went before they installed those glass boxes, because they almost want to go again just to check that part out, and honestly I feel bad for them. Either you pay that fee for the express ticket or you wait in that horrendous line. I suppose if you can make it out on a weekday you might find the whole experience a little more enjoyable. I know that is the general rule with amusement parks as well – go on a Wednesday.

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Chicago: Food

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I will probably be doing about six posts about Chicago, because honestly there are many pictures and a whole lot of words that I want to share about my trip. I have sort of come up with some catagories and the thing that I wanted to start with is the food in Chicago, because that is supposedly one of those famous things that you have to do when you go to Chicago. What it comes down to is three things. You have to try the Chicago deep dish pizza, which I am sure a great many people have heard about. I certainly was aware of that before I left. The other two I was less familiar with. There is a Chicago hotdog and an Italian beef sandwich.

This pizza is probably some of the best stuff I have ever eaten. It is just so good. We got this with sausage and pepperoni. As you can see there is an ungodly amount of cheese in there and it is topped with marinara sauce. You can not pick this thing up and eat it like normal pizza you have to eat it with a fork and a knife.

Next on my list is the Chicago hotdog. There are many places that serve this thing, but Jo and I were downtown, so I figured that was as good a time as any to find a place to get one. Seemed like good food while we were walking around. I actually ended up asking a man that was standing on the corner selling or giving away something for direction to find a place that served the item and was given very good directions.

For better or for worse we ended up having two of the dogs and they were fantastic. As you can see they come with some sort of hot peppers, tomato, mustard, onion, on a poppy seed bun. The whole package is complete with the addition of a beef hotdog that they cut in this peculiar way. I did not bother asking if there was an actual reason for that cut or if it was strictly for the sake of presentation.

I do not have a picture of the Italian beef sandwich, but to paraphrase the great late comedian Mitch Hedburg it was “like a cow between two crackers”. They piled so much beef on to this sandwich that I was quite content for the rest of that evening. Instead I have a picture of something else that while you can find anywhere Chicago is apparently one of, if not the largest, consumers of Mexican Coke. It is a very sweet drink with no high fructose corn sururp. Instead, they have sugar, and lots of it. We had to take the train downtown and then the pink line up to a special part of town to procure this beverage.

I do not even like Coke and I would probably drink this stuff. If you have never had it I can describe it as being so sweet that it actually reminded me of Pepsi. The glass bottle that you see in the picture has a date on it and that is when the bottle was actually made. I guess from what I was told the bottles are reused and there is tale of bottles from the 1980’s being discovered. It is something neat to get while you are there for sure. The grocery store we purchased them at was selling them for 99 cents each so it was hardly a huge cost.