Ciao!

While traveling in Italy, I read a rather remarkable book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. One of the entries in the book said that people aren't interested in hearing about my vacation and another one (I believe it was a different entry) said that people don't like to look at vacation pictures either. When I read this, I had been taking copious notes for my blog for several days already...but after thinking about it for a while, I realized that Amy Krouse Rosenthal might, indeed, be on to something. And so, because I gleaned that bit of insight from the book I read on vacation, I am going to try to relate a condensed version of my trip without boring anyone to death.

Day 1: We woke up way to early and stumbled our way out of bed to the airport and onto a plane to Chicago where we had a five-hour layover. Instead of rotting in O'Hare for five hours, Neil and I jumped on the El and headed into the Loop to meet Christine for lunch at Flat Top (all time favorite Chicago restaurant). On the El with my backpack, I felt like I was in college all over again heading back to Evanston after a (window) shopping trip at the Watertower. I could feel the rhythmic rattle of the train trying to lure me into that too-comfortable train sleep and I got a bit lost in the joy of the long lost familiarity of a city once lived in.

At one of the stops a middle-aged Asian man in a nice-looking felt pea coat got on and sat near us. He looked like a business man of some type and he had a strange little backpack with him that didn't go with the rest of his clothing and accessories. On the shiny vinyl backpack was a large rubber oval that said "ADVENTURE" on it in bright yellow all-caps italics. I thought about how companies/advertisers use these words that impact our emotions and I wondered if the man on the El bought the bag in hopes of becoming more adventurous, or if he just got it because it was cheap and he hadn't thought twice about the odd logo. I realize I was judging him on his looks on one particular Wednesday morning, but to me, he didn't look incredibly adventurous. He would have been better-suited to be carrying a nice leather briefcase, not the strangely cheesy ADVENTURE backpack.

When we got off the El, Christine was waiting to drive us to lunch where I got to eat some veggies and noodles with my favorite spicy lime basil sauce and we got to talk to Christine and catch up a bit. We probably could have talked for several more hours and still not done all of the catching up old friends can do after years of absence, but our flight to Brussels was waiting and Christine had a business meeting so we got back on the El and headed to O'Hare.

To be continued...