Girls' Weekends

I had a great time in Chicago last weekend. In the past, I stayed in the downtown area with the high rises. It's a great place to be and hang out but is definitely different from Lincoln Park where I stayed this time. My friend, AS, just moved there in early August. She finished business school in the spring. She's loving it so far. I met all the people who came to the weekend at some point during my career at my current job. 4 out of 5 of them I met in 1999. 4 out of 6 (including myself) are statisticians. It's amazing that we're all still friends and all still get together. We've been having these gatherings for 3 years now. There have been 4 in total. Two were at my place. The first one when we lived in the 625 square foot condo. The second one in our house so we had a little more room. The third one was in Boston. The only thing missing at this last one was MAK. She couldn't make it since she now lives in SF and travel is much more expensive. Usually the main items we focus on are: food, shopping and spa treatments. This time was no different. We had Chicago style pizza on Friday night. We went to the Urban Oasis on Saturday morning. And we hit the Magnificent Mile on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night we did something different. We went to the show put on by Second City. It was awesome. I definitely recommend that any time you're in Chicago, check it out! It's like being on the set of Saturday Night Live but much smaller with beer available throughout the show.

At the end of the weekend, we discussed where we'll meet next. We had two diametrically opposed ideas: Las Vegas or a yoga retreat. Hopefully, a year from now, I'll be updating you on that trip.

Chicago Follow Up

MKN finally got up at 10:45am. We went together to get coffee and a bagel at the Einstein's conveniently located near the AS's apartment. When we got back, the rest of the girls were getting out of bed. Not sure how they could sleep that long but to each his own. I definitely was missing MAK at the moment as she usually beats me out of bed.

Sunday Morning in Chicago - 10:20am Central Time

There's a cute cat named Chelsea who has decided to get up with me. Of course, her real reason for coming in the kitchen was to eat. She's actually quite hungry it seems. But, she did say hi to me before she started eating. A very polite cat :)

Ok, so I still haven't figured out how to get back in if I leave the apartment. I've decided I'm going to leave here by 10:45am Central time at the last because if I had gone to yoga, I would have been back here by 11:15am at the latest.

Probably will update again soon.

Sunday Morning in Chicago - 10:05am Central Time

There were no dish towels to be found so I used paper towels. It was a first in my life but it worked just fine and now I'm clean so I feel much better. On to my second task of the morning - figuring out how to get back into the apartment once I leave without waking anyone up. I'll check in again soon.

Sunday Morning in Chicago - 9:40am Central Time

I'm in Chicago right now for Girls' Weekend. Everyone else is asleep. I have no idea where the towels are so I can't even take a shower. I was supposed to go to yoga at 9am but when I got up at 8:30, it was raining. I've tried looking for the towels and am now thinking of using a dish towel as all I need to do is dry off - I'm not washing my hair since I washed it yesterday. So, if I'm able to figure that out, my next thing to figure out will be how to go get coffee and then get back into the apartment since I don't have a key. I'll keep you updated.