Elizabeth and Michel Go to the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show

So I love to travel, and I love planning travel, but I don't do it nearly enough.  Michel is the same way, and one of our favorite things is to talk about future trips we want to take.  Right now Brazil is in the lead, but Ireland, Austria, and Thailand are always in the conversation, along with a glorious long weekend in the California wine country.  Fortunately we both travel well and enjoy traveling together, so our very real goal is to make all of these trips happen.

Some of you know my love of travel shows (The Getaway on the new Esquire network is a current favorite), and if you are Michel and my college roommate, Kathleen, you know of my weirdly inexplicable love of Rick Steves' travel show, Rick Steves' Europe.  I have a vivid memory of watching his Christmas special with Kathleen and Michel one Saturday morning senior year of college, laughing at his utter granola nerdiness yet being inspired by his wholly sensible travel tips...and making fun of his poor attempts at multi-cultural humor.  Rick Steves's guidebook even accompanied us on our honeymoon to Spain, and he only steered us wrong once.  (DO NOT eat the fried cod in Sevilla, no matter what he says!!)

So you can imagine my excitement when I opened a Travelzoo e-mail in December to find a deal for super discounted tickets to the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show, at which Rick Steves was speaking.  (Samantha Brown of The Travel Channel, another favorite, was also on the docket.)  There were enough promises of delicious food samples to convince Michel to agree to go with me, and so I purchased the tickets to the convention in Rosemont.

Thus began the Great Chicago Travel and Adventure Show Adventure of 2014.

First Up: The Mexico Booth!

Elizabeth:  The Mexico booth was right inside the door, and I was hoping, nay, determined to find a delicious, fresh avocado in my bag.  This is mainly because we have not been able to find good avocados since late September, and my avocado-cravings are getting out of control, not because I actually thought there would be avocados.  Of course, I was disappointed.

Michel:  More broadly, I was disappointed not because there were no avocados but because there was no Mexican food of any sort. 

Next Up: The Other Booths!

Elizabeth:  The booths around the stage were mostly for North America.  The American booths were theme park focused and aggressive, and the Canadian booths were outdoorsy and polite.

Michel:  There was a booth for Oklahoma.  I understand the inclination to entice people to visit.  But seeing as Oklahoma is the geographic equivalent of un-anesthetized dental surgery, that battle has already been lost.

Next Up: Rick Steves!

Elizabeth:  So Rick Steves has way more personality than Michel gives him credit for.  His presentation was thorough, interesting, informative, and humorous.  As he says, he travels and makes the mistakes so we can travel smarter.  Plus he signed my book!  After his hour and a half long presentation, we all lined up in an orderly queue to await our turn for an autograph.  I had brought my copy of his Travel as a Political Act (a really well-written and thoughtful read on the philosophy of travel) and was excited to speak with him.  However, Steves went rogue.  He came back to the line, said, "Everyone gather round!" and signed whatever was put in front of him as he turned in a circle.  Not one to miss out on a good opportunity, I slipped around the the back side of the circle, got my book signed, and was off to find Michel and some food within about 5 minutes. 

Michel:  Rick Steves was surprisingly human.  I went in expecting the charisma vacuum one sees on television but instead got a mildly engaging travel expert with moments of genuine wit.  I enjoyed 90 minutes of Rick Steves far more than I thought I would.  Rather than get something signed, I went off in search of cheese samples upon the conclusion of the program.

Cheese Samples and Other Treats!

Elizabeth:  The cheese was tasty!  We made multiple passes by the cheese booth.  We also met a super nice operator of environmentally and culturally sustainable safaris.  We're besties now and are planning a safari with his company for some time in the next 25 years.  That is to say, we took a copy of his brochure.

Michel:  As with most things I do, my primary motivation for attending this convention was food.  I enjoyed the cheese.  However, the level of food available for free was far less than was depicted in the literature.  The proprietors of this convention can look forward to a strongly worded letter pertaining to this most disappointing instance of false advertising.

 Elizabeth:  RAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!  Rage, born of hunger and perhaps the beginnings of a migraine, is how my feelings about the food demonstration should be characterized.  We were told that there would be plenty of food demonstrations with free samples.  There was ONE food demonstration booth that ran throughout the day.  We attended a demonstration by the very nice, talented head chef at Thunder Bay, a resort town in Ontario being heavily pushed by the convention.  You would think that when free samples are promised to those who show up, they would have those samples in a warmer ready to be handed out at some point during the demonstration.  NO!  This lovely, charming chef cooked two filets of salmon and 4 chicken breasts and then these super slow assistants cut them up to be handed out.  It took FOREVER!!!  Add to that the irritation of the lady behind me hitting me in the back with her purse so I would pass her some leaflet on my table for her to look at, the fact that I was missing the beginning of Samantha Brown's presentation, and that the food cooked in the presentation was nothing special, and I was quickly becoming cranky.

 The Chef--he really was such a nice man.  It's not his fault.

The George Kennedy-looking gentleman with the microphone is the moderator.

Michel:  Holy shit, the moderator.  This guy had the personality of the hackiest Catskills comic you have ever seen.  His behavior suggested to me that he firmly believed that were he not the center of attention for even a second, he would immediately die.

Elizabeth:  He slowed things down so much!

Michel:  I have never experienced such visceral distaste for a master of ceremonies in my life.  He was the worst.

Next Up:  The Mexico Booth Again!

Elizabeth:  As we wandered our way toward the Samantha Brown presentation, we began to see people clutching large flat corn disks covered in a gloriously bright and creamy green concoction and sprinkled with bits of red and purple which can only be described as a tostada smothered in guacamole and pico.  Immediately knowing that our avocado dreams had come true, we beelined for the Mexico booth again.  Never have I ever been so utterly crushed to discover that a free sample had run out literally right before I arrived.

Michel:   Frankly, I blame the moderator at the food demonstration. 


Final Stop:  Samantha Brown!

Apologies for my cell phone camera.  It does not do well with long distance.

Elizabeth:  Samantha Brown is as lovely and genuine in person as she is on tv.  She gave an excellent and interesting speech on how to travel meaningfully, and I loved what she had to say.  Unfortunately the hunger was beginning to become more of an issue, and Michel said he would defer to me on what we did.  I decided that the only thing that would make me feel better would be a hot dog and Dr. Pepper from Budacki's, the great little hot dog shack down the street from us, recently featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain's The Layover.  So we called it a day.

Michel:  I recommend the Polish sausage with the hot peppers.  

 

Elizabeth:  While parts of it were frustrating, I'm still glad we went.  It's always exciting to see "celebrities," and it was a new experience.   Maybe not one worth repeating but one worth doing once!