Since the crew arrived rather late yesterday (and it was raining), we didn’t head to the airshow until this morning. All the guys were up super early, having just come over from SA and still jet lagged. Nick and I got a bit slower start, but managed to make it to the show in time for him to see Richard Branson, the Virgin Galactic plane the White Knight ‘Eve’, and one of his idols, Burt Rutan. (Until I finally saw that spelled I thought his name was Bertrude Tan – I thought it was a bit odd!)

Since we’re going to be here for a few days, we paced ourselves. We mainly sat near the flight line and watched the show – the Airbus A380, tons of awesome aerobatics, the old Warbirds (planes from the various wars). The aerobatics was pretty insane – the pilots go screaming into the air, stall, do some ‘spins’ (Pete explained to me that they’re really not in control when the fall out of the sky so it’s a little misleading to call them spins). My neck got a little sore from looking at the sky, but it was pretty cool. I think my fav was the Beechcraft 18 – it’s an old 1940’s plane that did a really pretty aerobatics routine to some very monumental music. A few other of the hot-shot guys had whole musical routines and so many product placements it was a bit ridiculous! There was also some really neat formation flying and aerobatics. Everyone is afraid I’ll get bored – and maybe I will after a few days! But I have my book and my chair, and can entertain myself anywhere!

The drive out of Chicago is a bit of a blur. We got going early (or early-ish, we’re not exactly morning people), and since our visit to Chicago had been so rushed decided to drive through some of the neighborhoods to the North of the city instead of getting directly on the freeway. It still amazes me how far some of our cities sprawl. You still felt like you were in the middle of the city 30-40 minutes outside the city center! There were some awesome apartments – I am obsessed with little balconies with window boxes, and there were so many to look at. Even amongst a row of cookie-cutter construction you’d see a gorgeous building with amazing detail. Eventually the cute shops and restaurants and buildings with rooftop decks perched atop them gave way to small, squat buildings that must be in a predominantly Romanian community. How I know that? Well, aside from the Romanian churches and Little Bucharest restaurants, there was also an office for the Romanian Liberal Democratic Party on one street. Interesting.

We got a call from Nick’s dad as we were getting out of Chicago area. He and a few of his friends came over from SA for the Oshkosh airshow, which is where we were headed to meet up with them. They were renting cars and driving from Chicago, but didn’t have directions to the house they’d rented…we luckily had Ted, so we sent them a few directions via SMS, and headed our on way. We knew immediately that we were in the right place when we took the exit to Oshkosh and saw tents, RVs and airplanes stretched out on every grassy area available. It is incredible how many people are here! We arrived about about hour ahead of Nick’s dad (thanks to Ted), and spent a little time catching up with our ‘homework’ (trying to keep track of expenses, doing a bit of writing, etc). We were glad when they finally arrived – we had worried that perhaps we didn’t have the right address, and someone would come home from work and ask us what the hell we were doing sitting on their porch drinking a few beers. That would be a bit awkward to explain!

Originally we intended to bypass Chicago on our way to Oshkosh, and head back ofter the show. However, we all of the sudden found ourselves in Michigan a day early, and decided we’d might as well take advantage of the time. Plus, I think we might be getting a little bit traveled out…

We found a great deal on a hotel right near Michigan Ave downtown – quite a change from our little tent! After making ourselves a bit pretty, we hit the town and wandered down the ‘Magnificent Mile’ – not quite our speed with all the fancy shops, but the buildings are gorgeous! In Millennium Park we had to take a few pictures at the big mirror ball-thing (technical, no?). We were just walking by, and all of the sudden we started feeling a tremendous sense of peer pressure – everyone had their cameras out. We felt compelled to whip ours out and take a few pics! It actually was kinda cool – it’s rounded so you can get a reflection of yourself with the city in the picture.

Despite a few wrong turns, we finally figured out how to get down to the lake front. It was a fabulous day – sunny, a bit breezy so not too hot. Walking by the marina we were really jealous of all the people with boats. We did a little shopping, looking for which boat we want to buy (the dream: the next long trip will be on our boat, but in reality we have to decide between a boat and a house…unless we win the lottery!). We decided on a modest catamaran we saw moored there – it’s not home, but it’s much. There were quite a few people ‘green-boating’, as my uncle calls it – saving fuel by sitting on their boats and drinking rather than going.

We had arranged to see the Blue Man Group in the evening – Nick has the CD, and hadn’t ever seen a show, and we’d tried unsuccessfully to see it in Boston as well. (For those who don’t know, they’re a 3 man percussion group that combines random instruments with showmanship and comedy). The show was fun – though the skits could use a bit of updating. The humor was at least 10 years dated in some skits! But the music was awesome – I loved the tunes played on the PVC piping. Our highlights tour ended with a giant stuffed Chicago pizza at Giordano’s, and a ride back on the El. There is SO much more we could have done in Chicago – I can’t wait to come back again – but in our limited visit we had a lot of fun.

One of the most interesting things was on the ride up to the theater we saw a group of apartments that had what looked like tennis courts on the roof. Groups of college kids seemed to be playing some sort of crazy drinking games – beer tennis, maybe? Looked like a fun Sunday afternoon! There was also a full on street party going on near Fulton street, and a ton of happy Cubs fans.