Summer time: streets, clubs & trains in Chicago.
We had spent close to an hour and a half looking for a parking spot for the two cars...the Chicago Bears were having a home game & that's a big thing in the city of Chicago. There was just so much going on in town with people all over and lots of cars everywhere. Honestly, you would be forgiven to think that everybody and their momma were in town for the game or for a hang out that day; so it was near impossible to find an empty spot to fit a car anywhere!
Together with 9 other friends we had driven a fast-paced four hours from Ypsilanti, MI in the two cars to the Windy City for a hang out and loads of fun but little did we know that we would also be taking an unwarranted night tour of the city after having partied the night away at a concert at The Wildhare, popularly referred to as...[story continues when you click the comment section. I did this to shorten it on this front page]...
posted by akiey at 1/26/2005
3 Comments:
...the 'Reggae Capital of America'. The club, frequented by Americans, Africans and Caribbeans is conveniently located at 3530 North Clark Street. As usual, there were a couple of great artistes performing that night and the mix of reggae, Hiphop, African, Caribbean and Latin music was fabulous. Only stroke of bad luck was the fact that after the party, tired and in dire need of sleep, we could not get the cars until 9am the next morning.
Having driven early into the city for a concert starting at around 9pm, we needed to find a spot to 'drop off' the cars as we went about sightseeing on foot and by train. We did see quite a good bit of the city, took many photos, went to the malls, visited the monuments and enjoyed the fairly warm weather. Come 8.30pm and we just couldn't wait to get to that memorable night concert. Fun we had and dance & sing along we did lots but every good thing's gotta come to an end so the concert shut down and we needed to drive to Michigan since we had friends to visit and 2 more 'must see' concerts to catch the following two days in Detroit.
Most of us badly needed to either sleep or sit down; personally all I needed was something to lean against. I was so bl**dy tired & my feet couldn't carry me no more. Brisk walk to the parking tower and...Cars on "lock-down"!!!!
Reason for lock-up?...After searching for an empty spot for hours we finally came across two on the 4th floor of a parking tower where attendants told us parking was free. We nearly lost our minds on hearing that--on that day other places charged as much as $15 for half a day. So, we went nuts & quickly parked the cars assuming the place stays open all night....yeah right!!
Now that the cars were locked up we most urgently needed a place to sit our tired, tortured butts or at least to lay our pounding heads but we had no luck getting hotel rooms since all were taken thanks to the game and many concerts going on.
At that time of late night-early dawn most "Open-Late" restaurants were either closed or were about to pull down their steel shutters and no waiter would take an order from a bunch of party-goers that didn't seem to be on their way home. The cold breeze coming from Lake Michigan by way of ever-freezing Canada was biting into our exposed skin; a couple of girls we were with were complaining the party shoes they wore were tearing their toes off....
To cut to the chase we ended up taking endless, senseless, no clear-direction or destination rides on the noisy trains (taking turns to sleep a little despite the crazy early morning characters)until they stopped running for the night. We got out and again painfully walked around town for another 2 hours or so until this restaurant with a different kind of 'clientele' (hit me up for details on this, lol!!)opened & again took turns sleeping and ordering coffee that was taken in loooong, drooooly, tiiired sips until morning came. At 8.40am, we reluctantly forced ourselves up to go pick up the cars. We so much wanted this eventful day/night to end, but as we walked the streets leading to the parking tower we noticed that some of the ladies of the night we saw pacing up & down the streets all night actually had too much makeup, some with pronounced Adam’s apples, and fake eyelashes...Need I say more? lol:)))!
Pole! It all sounds painful even though you also sound like you had a great time:-) Lol at the ladies of the night.
Mshairi, asante sana. We did have a lot of fun despite the weird situations but they helped make it a very memorable trip. Adventure is never scripted is it?
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