A Tree Grows in Chicago

On October 23rd, my pharmacy friend Shari traveled to Chicago by bus. She stayed the night with Shivani, our M2 friend at Northwestern. The following morning I drove the 2 hours or so to downtown Chicago to meet up with them. I made pretty good time and didn't hit much traffic, even in downtown Chicago.

It was drizzling that morning, which was annoying. Thank God for the invention of the GPS, lol. I parked right in front of Shivani's apartment complex without realizing it, so I walked a block down the street and back before I realized my failed observation. *Facepalms*

Shivani had left for rounds earlier that morning, so Shari and I waited in her apartment for an hour or so. We waited until about lunch time, at which point we walked down to a breakfast and lunch cafe that Shivani recommended about a block down the street called West Egg Cafe. Across from Shivani's apartment was this odd looking parking structure:

The picture was taken after the drizzling stopped and the sky cleared up.

Around the corner from West Egg Cafe was this mural on the side of a building. It was the kind of street art one only really sees in a downtown area, and I had really missed that kind of street art since I left Ann Arbor. I'm not entirely sure what the mural is exactly, but it was cool. :-P


West Egg Cafe was pretty crowded when we arrived, which was fine since we were still waiting and hoping Shivani would get off rounds a bit early. We were seated in a corner near a window and it was nice looking out at the people on the street. I think it's a small local eatery, at least it certainly had that feel. I got huevos rancheros, something I've never had but had always wanted to try. It was really good! And filling.

Mural on the wall inside of West Egg Cafe.

We stalled for as long as we could at West Egg Cafe, waiting for Shivani. But alas we had finished eating and decided to leave. We rendezvoused with Shivani back at her apartment. After chatting briefly, Shivani decided to give us a quick tour of the Northwestern med campus, which was about a block or two away.

Northwestern's med campus was not like anything I had imagined. The best description for Northwestern and its hospitals was that they looked and felt like really classy hotels. Seriously, everything looked so nice on the inside, it was almost difficult for me to even look at the places like they were hospitals. I mean, there were escalators inside these hospitals! We didn't even see any people in white coats or scrubs; Shivani said they were all on the upper floors, so we'd never see them on floors 1-3. It was all just so nice. And all the hospitals were connected on the 2nd or 3rd floors by glass skywalks.

And then I saw something that totally made my day:


If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice a tree growing on the top of some building in downtown Chicago. That was just so interesting that I HAD to take a picture of it. Shivani and Shari thought it was weird of me to notice something like that. Whatever. I thought it was pretty cool. :-P

Shari and I left downtown Chicago for Wisconsin around 3pm. It was really nice seeing Shivani and walking around in a major downtown area. I gave Shari a tour of MCW - showed her the anatomy lab, the med library, and the two hospital cafeterias (because that was the only route I really knew through the hospitals thus far). We then ate at a local bar/restaurant with my roommate and just spent the rest of the night chatting and chilling.

The following day, October 25th, we all decided to watch the movie Where the Wild Things Are. I only vaguely remember reading the book when I was little, so I didn't really have anything to compare the movie against. In our opinion, the movie was really well down. It was very psychological and followed through how Max, the main character, worked through his problems and how the monsters mirrored some of the people and attitudes around him. It was interesting watching the workings in Max's mind come to a kind of 360 and he realizes the consequences of his actions.

We grabbed a quick lunch and then were on the road back towards Chicago. I dropped Shari off at a Metra train station that was heading to Union Station, where she would transfer to her bus back to Ann Arbor. Overall it was a really nice weekend. I wish we had more time so we could go explore Milwaukee a bit (because I still have to explore Milwaukee), but we still had a pretty good time.

Backlog: 10-23-09 to 10-25-09