The Epic Road Trip Continues

After my last post we spent another few days in New York. We visited the Natural History Museum, and the MoMA, walked all over Manhattan, and ate a bunch of really nice meals. I would go through and add pictures to make my points a bit more clear, but the internet connection in the hotel I'm stuck in tonight is way too slow for that. I was really impressed with New York, but I'm not sure I could "make it" there. I can't imagine making enough money to be comfortable there and enjoy the amenities that a city like New York has to offer. It's an amazing, frenetic place and I'd like to go back and visit one day with a bit more coin in my pocket.

After our stay in the city we hopped back onto the Amtrak and had an enjoyable ride back to Buffalo. I could tell that it was colder in Buffalo than in New York, and the amount of snowfall that I saw on the ride from Buffalo back to Cuba was pretty astounding. We spent the next day with Babehoney's mom and then headed to Chicago to see my best friends from my time in Hawaii (code names, "BigSexy", "Mrs. Sexy", or alternatively "The Sexies." I was really excited to get to see them, and I can't believe it had been two entire years since BigSexy dropped me off at Kona-Keahole airport.

I'm a really lucky guy to have met the sexies in Hawaii, because I've found it pretty rare that I meet people who I know are just plain good folks right away. It's even rarer that those people stay in touch. When they moved back to the mainland I was already scheming for a way to go visit them, but the sudden unemployment situation and the move to Korea made it something that had to be squeezed in. I'm real lucky that babehoney was into the idea of driving over to Chicago to spend a couple of days with them.

When we got to casa de sexy it was awesome. My buddy and I picked up right where we left off, and he started in with Chicago food right away. Our first meal was a pizza from Lou Manalti's. It was amazing. I hadn't ever had a Chicago style pizza IN CHICAGO before, and I was not at all disappointed. The next morning we headed into the city and checked out the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. I liked Chicago's train system, but it seems to be way more geared towards getting people into and out of the city as a commuter rail than a way to get around the city. I could be wrong about that. The dinosaur gallery at the Field Museum was great, and the Aquarium was big and fun. As we exited I got a couple cool skyline photos. We had dinner in Greek town which was awesome. I finally heard real Greeks say "Opah" so I guess it counts as a cultural experience. Our second day in Chicago found us at the top of the Sears Willis Tower (The Big Willy) which was at once exhilarating and terrifying. I snapped lots of photos though. After our trip into the clouds we headed down to the Art Institute and saw some great art, walked around Millennium Park, and headed to Caro Mio for an Italian meal. The meal was amazing. Everything I tasted was the best I've ever had of those particular items. After dinner we returned to casa de sexy and tore into a bottle of Jaegermeister. Fun was had by all.

This morning we got off to a little bit of a rough start. You might imagine that the Jaegermeister had something to do with it. You would be right. We left Chicago and headed east into Indiana where we picked up Interstate 65 south. The roads became very icy and we decided to pull off the highway in Lafayette and get a hotel room. It was a good decision, as they closed the highway in Indianapolis, there's apparently a big winter storm fizzling out tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

I'm really happy that I've gotten to see two of my favorite people in the world on this trip with the one I love, and I've enjoyed the hell out of visiting a couple of the biggest cities in the country and taking tons of pictures. It's amazing how much fun you can have without spending any money, and meals, well, we would have bought them anyway, right?

Now for the Korea update, I talked to our recruiter this morning and he said he was mailing our contracts to us today. We should beat them home or at least get there very soon after they arrive. Soon we will know where we're going. It's getting exciting.