Two weekends ago Anil and I made a pilgrimage to Chicago to see our friend Melissa. She was one of Anil's roommates when we first lived in Boston for a year after college and is still one of our favorite people. (I'm not just saying that because she reads this blog. Hi Melissa!) So I wanted to make a trip out to see her before Anil & Sara 2.0 takes effect and everything changes. I wanted to catch up while it was still just us.
We pretty much ate our way through the streets of Chicago, which wasn't hard to do considering most streets we found ourselves near either smelled like grilled sausages or chocolate. Seriously, we cracked the window in our downtown hotel room because we couldn't get the AC to work, and it smelled like a mouth-watering sausage cart outside of Fenway Park. While Melissa was at work on Friday, Anil and I strolled around the waterfront and sought out a Chicago-style hot dog at Navy Pier. For dinner Melissa took us to an all-organic pizza restaurant called Crust (even the beer was organic, as was the "safe sex on the beach" mocktail that I had). Talk about making me feel good about eating pizza (um, and dipping the crust in the onion dip--organic onion dip is good for you, right?).
The next day was filled with more eating and more walking, a great combo for 5 months pregnant. We ended the visit with an Argentinean steak house (Tango Sur if I Googled correctly). If we ever had hopes of our baby being a vegetarian, I'm pretty sure they ended on this trip. She wouldn't have had much of a chance anyway; every time Anil decides to try being a vegetarian he immediately starts craving ribs. Chicago has lots of restaurants that are BYOB, so the best part of the evening was watching an elderly woman shuffle across the street after dinner toting a half-full bottle of wine by her side.
The only bummer of the trip was that my body hit some realization that I was, in fact, 5 months pregnant, and while I'd been feeling great at home, the combination of traveling, walking a ton, and toting around an extra 12 or so pounds (and I'm rounding down) really caught up with me. By the late afternoon, I started feeling pretty sore and tired, and this nagging and intense pain I've had in my upper back seemed to quadruple. Fortunately, I highly recommend the Seneca hotel, not only for its reasonable price and free hot breakfast, but also for its jacuzzi bathtubs! I have to say that in general I'm pretty grossed out by taking baths in hotels, but this one was worth it. Especially when I added shampoo in lieu of bubble bath and turned on the jets.
Here are some photos from our adventure.
Melissa and me in front of the giant bean in Millennium Park. I wanted to see how the belly would look.
Anil and me, also in Millennium Park.
A pre-lunch treat in honor of you know who. I think Melissa has a version in which my eyes aren't closed, but this will do for now.
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