Blog Entry Title Goes Here by Stephen Sadowski!

This week we have a special guest blogger, my (Elizabeth's) cousin, Stephen Sadowski, visiting us from the barbaric hinterlands of Madison, Wisconsin!  (Wisconsin, lest you forget, I love your cheese.)  Thank you for visiting for the long weekend, Stephen, and we're looking forward to your next visit!

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Readers, I’d like to tell you I came to Chicago to audit the veracity of Michel and Elizabeth’s blog entries, but that is completely untrue. I came to Chicago for the same reasons I always do: because Chicago is awesome – and made more so by the fact that my cousins are living here.

Let me state for the record that getting to Chicago, for me, is always an adventure. I currently live in Madison, and so I take the train to Chicago at every opportunity. It saves me money on tolls and time when it comes to the unfortunate mess that is I-90. It’s also very comfortable and allows for working, napping, or – depending on one’s fellow passengers – quiet self-reflection.

It turns out my adventure getting to Chicago was a bit different this time.  There was a bus – and cranky passengers. I was subjected to the single loudest instance of preachy Christian schlock music that I’ve ever encountered, but ended up being delivered to my destination via stretch limo… in the pouring rain.

If this all seems a bit bizarre to you and a slight deviation from those who live in the northeast corridor who generally have the ability to get on to an Amtrak train and get where they’re going with very little fanfare, you should know that this is generally not possible in the Midwest. My train from Madison has never been less than 1.5 hours late, and at most has been simply canceled (though this was the first time for that) with alternate transportation provided. To be fair, if it happens again, I will feel justified in asking “just to be put in a stretch limo to Chicago” because there’s now a precedent.

However, travel adventures aside, the real purpose of this missive is to talk about life off (or on, depending on perspective) the Brown line.

To that end, the following happened: I arrived, ate pizza, played board games, slept, woke, attempted to go to a brewery tour – wait, hold up, let’s talk about the brewery.

The brewery is called Half Acre, and it’s located a short half-mile walk from Elizabeth and Michel’s place. We set out around 10:15 on Saturday morning in a light drizzle, making our way towards toward the brewery. We arrived and stood in line – in the drizzle – for a while only to have the tour cut off three people in front of us. This was sad, in a way, for Michel and I as we were interested in their brewing set-up, though all was not lost: we’ve both seen many a brewery before, and the real interest is what the brewery produces – beer.  We trundled over to the tap room and got started on doing what – at least I – do best when surrounded by Chicago hipsters in a craft beer establishment: criticizing.

I think of myself as a fairly decent judge of beer. I would probably be even better if I bothered to keep notes and do proper tastings and yada yada give me beer, notes are boring. We, as a group, went through the full set of beers (as tasters, 2oz pours or so) that were available and I think we’re agreed on the following: Half Acre has a way to go yet. There is nothing disappointing about what they brew, but there was nothing exceptional or terribly exciting about it either. They had four different IPAs (one a double)  in a selection of 10 beers, along with a golden ale, a pale ale, an American pale ale, and American wheat ale, a ‘styleless wonder’ – the Over Ale, probably my highest rated of all the beers, and a pilsner.

Needless to say, we were rather disappointed in the linearity of the brewing, but as was mentioned, none were poor entries.

We waited out the rain which had become a full-on downpour, and sipped through the tasters as Elizabeth chose, instead, to drink a strawberry Jarritos. Michel had – unbeknownst to me – also spent time in Austria, and so we spent some time talking about Kolsches and the Stiegl brewery (and I found out you can get Stiegl in Chicago!)

Moving on we went to Marmalade for brunch, which I’d tell you about except that I don’t have to, because it’s already been done in a prior post! From there, onward –to the Zoo!

 Elizabeth was excited about the giraffes.

I realize at this point I’ve forgotten to mention, we’re all in our burnt orange because the plan is to attend the watching party for the UT season opener against NMSU, so we were constantly acquiring unsolicited assistance and advice from people who assumed that because there were three of us together in Longhorns colors, we must not be from Chicago. That’s fine – it proves the general friendliness of Chicagoans.
The zoo was nice – it is the Lincoln Park Zoo, which is an excellent free resource for the city of Chicago and surrounding areas, but nothing terribly amazing in my opinion, just a fun way to spend and afternoon.

 Lounging like Shakespeare

 A friendly Chicagoan offered to take our picture, asked where we were from, and hoped we were enjoying our visit to Chicago.

Onward, then – to Stanley’s Kitchen and Tap! Following another short walk, we found the Texas Exes viewing party (part of the way trailing a couple also in colors). Nothing terribly remarkable here; the food was solid, the bar was loud, and I introduced Michel to Shiner Premium. At one point there was the strange occurrence of a leggy blonde showing up in Sooners colors. In a sea of burnt orange, there’s really no hiding when you’re in maroon and white – and there’s no doubt that for the perhaps half-hour she was there, the eyes of Texas were, indeed, upon her.

 Stanley's is the official Chicago bar of the Texas Longhorns...

The real issue – and part of the reason we were at Stanley’s was to watch the game, which was being streamed on LHN, but it kept stuttering, stalling, and skipping, and the noise level was such that just shy of halftime, we gave up and headed back to the apartment in the hopes that we could stream it there. We were only partially successful upon arriving, having to settle for the audio and the ESPN gamecast, but the 56-7 outcome more than made up for the lack of TV viewing.

 
Sunday was a late-rising day, and we basically started with a trip to Fountainhead, which is a solidly inspiring upscale bar with great taps and a solid menu. I was able to collect a delicious saison with my brunch (a brunch that included duck fat fried home fries) and will heartily recommend the establishment to any and all in the area. There were, sadly, a lack of Ayn Rand references, but as a friend put it, I could hardly expect a bar relegated to hate sex and architecture.

 Stephen's breakfast burrito

 Michel's "Eggle"

 Elizabeth's veggie omelette with cheddar

From there it was on to the International Museum of SurgicalScience, and there’s nothing I can do in written description to do this museum justice. Yes, it is a museum, but it’s awesome – tons of historical surgical instruments and data, history of procedures and now-common practices and tools – and some very disturbing statues.

 
The day was capped by two exciting events:  visiting Sprinkles and acquiring a cupcake and making a nice dinner for my hosts.

I got the maple bacon cupcake, and folks, while it was not a life-changing experience, it was one of the better cupcakes I’ve had in my life. It was basically all the good things about breakfast in a cupcake.  A+++ would cupcake again.

 
Dinner was a simple pasta fresca with a salad; a good summer dish!

Danke, meine Gatsberger, for a wonderful time… I’ll be back soon for more adventures!
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Stephen