Chicago!

Birds eye view of the New Gotham

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the windy city of Chicago this weekend. And boy, what a massively jinxed trip its been.

To start with, I missed my flight on Thursday evening and wasn’t able to get onto another flight as a standby. And since I love my friends so much, I decided to book a single ticket down to O’Hare. Note the emphasis on booking a single ticket. I originally planned to take my original return flight back. But fate had other plans in store for me. More on that later.

So I grab my bag (sans laptop this time. Yes, you heard me- who needs the lappy when I got my trusted IPhone!), taxied to JFK, hopped onto AA 655 and was in Chicagoland in 2 hours 25 minutes. My pal lived way on the other side of town, so after changing a couple of trains, including a slight screw up with the directions given to me, I reached my buddy’s apartment. I like Chicago. It reminds me of New York in several ways. There is never a lack of places to spend money. Michigan Ave. is a total Fifth Ave. wannabe. From the designer stores to buildings with fancy-schmancy post-modern architecture, Chicago has it all.

Most of the trip was rather uneventful. The usual college buddies meeting after really long, catching up with each others lives, dealing with awkward moments and quirky behavior- we had it all. Not to mention the drama, the tears, the micro-managing, the over-analyzing of every goddamn thing. I somehow felt a very subtle restraint in most people. No one was ready to push limits, “caring” for other people’s feelings and all that kind of bullshit. It was just like old times. Mann, I miss college! We also did most of the touristy bullshit- Millennium Park, that crappy steel bean thingy, the Face Fountain, Sears Tower, Navy Pier and the architectural boat ride (which btw, was the most zzzzz inducing of all). The shitty part of the day was the weather. The sun was shining at its scorching best. Made me look like a rickshaw driver right out of City of Joy.

But the highlight of the trip was most definitely Saturday night. After dinner, the group headed to a club called Soundbar. A very classy place. Charged an entry fee of 20 dollars. Well worth the money spent. The music was good, the crowd was decent, smoke free, and an extremely high octane environment. Oh and it also had skimpily clad dancers. Not that I care. Hah! As for me, I was completely and totally in a mood to dance. I felt like I had a huge weight lifted of my chest. I was ready to take over the world. ‘Khulla saand‘ as Saifoo would put it. I felt this strange confidence possess me that helped overcome all my inhibitions. I was looking sharp and surrounded by beautiful women. I was all over the place, dancing like a free bird. Downing shots like there’s no tomorrow!

Coming back to my original story, my friend suggested that since I had missed my flight to Chicago on the original ticket, I should at least confirm my return flight. I tried checking-in via the website. No dice. So I spent the next hour talking to a douchebag/retarded representative from United Airlines trying to knock some sense into her head. But noooo! Why would they listen to the voice of reason, when they have capitalistic morons brainwashing them into operating a loss making industry by spouting stupid United-isms such as “I’m sorry Sir, I understand your problem, but we have to charge you an additional 600 dollars to open the reservation.“, “It’s our policy. I can’t help it.“, “Our resources have indicated that your reservation has zero value.“. Zero value?! ZERO VALUE!!? My 300 dollar ticket has zero goddamn value! Should have seen it coming after this. Needless to say, I ain’t gonna be flying United Air anytime soon. Go suck it, bitches. I hope you burn to the ground.

The badluck didn’t stop there. As I handed a little Chicago shotglass souvenir to Little m, I realized that it was broken. At this point, I could hardly care any less. I give up. Sigh!