The Other Hobart

The view from Tom & Jan's lounge room

Written by Crystal

City: Hobart, Indiana

Weather: warmer, about 2C - 5C

We've arrived at Tom & Jan's (cousins) house in Hobart, Indiana, a lovely town about an hour's drive from Chicago. A light sprinkling of snow greeted us this morning, making for a picturesque view down the street.

I'm not sure if Craig has mentioned this already, but all my relatives here are cousins (it gets complicated whenever we try and work it out, but we're numbered cousins, several times removed). I think it was my grandmother's neice who married an American serviceman around WW2, but irrespective of how tenuous the links may appear on paper, we're all excited to be part of the same family.

So, Jordan (another cousin) arrived at midday after making a 6-hour drive north especially to meet us, and we'll head south with him tomorrow to see/meet all his immediate family in Kentucky.

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Bear with us: the next few days will be testing, because they'll involve a lot of travel, not much sleep, an overnight Greyhound bus ride back to Chicago, then a flight to New York. So forgive us if we don't post for a few days :)

The Brown Line... TOOTOOOT!!!

Written by: Craig
City: Chicago
Weather: Really cold, but dry, -4C; Windchill: Enough to strip your face off

Today started with a walk to a health food shop for breakfast (at Kramer's), a stop for a mocha with deadly cream (at Intelligentsia) and a posting home of some of our heavy stuff (at the Post Office). Somewhere in there we decided to blow off a touristy visit to Millenium Park, and instead grab a Brown Line train to Belmont Station to visit the Threadless tshirt outlet. Brown Line. I'm still laughing a puerile laugh. '10 carriages, groaning down the Brown Line'. Okay, I'll stop.

Threadless was good (it even had New Order playing when we arrived, just to make Crystal feel like she'd found mecca!) -- but only had 20 tshirt designs on show (they change them every 2 weeks). What was REALLY good was the area we found ourselves in AROUND the outlet. So many awesome shops, really cool! Used bookstores, funky weird crap stores, an awesome record store called Reckless Records -- it really felt like we'd found the Brunswick end of Chicago AND WE LIKED IT! What was interesting was that at least three of the stores had vintage Playboys for sale. But nothing quite says, "No Sale" like second hand porn.

We finished up getting some tasty Indian food, then walking through the REALLY cold night back to the train station on Belmont. It was thoroughly relieving and satisfying to feel the rumble in our stomachs as the Brown Line train rumbled in its approach. HA, SEE WHAT I DID THERE, I MADE ANOTHER BROWN JOKE!

We returned to the hotel (THE HILTON, BITCHES!), had a Guinness at the Irish Bar downstairs, and called it a night. Tomorrow we head to Hobart, Indiana, to hang with more of Crystal's family. Sounds like it's gonna be pretty swoit!

Behold the pictures!

We SO joked around with this, until we actually got hit by some falling ice

Crystal rides the Brown Line train, emotions under control

Crystal arrives at the Threadless store, emotions run amok

Inside Reckless Records, best record store we've seen!

A cool vintage clothes shop

Craig, playing through tears of joy, having found an old Karate Champ machine ($450 to buy, but the postage home would be prohibitive) Astute viewers will observe that Crystal waited until Craig got hit in the nuts before taking the shot

The walk back along Belmont Street

Crystal, overwhelmed in a second-hand bookstore

Junk food of the day: the gooiest chocolate and caramel clouds ever

The Windy, Snowy City

Written by Crystal
City: Chicago
Weather: COLD, -2C (wind chill factor: -8C), sunny with a little bit of snow

We had a great day today, so great that we've decided to stay an extra night here in the windy city (oh yes, it's WINDY).

Tourists are easy to spot by their excitement over snow–
everyone else has seen enough of it :)

Looking back down Michigan St towards our hotel

Art is everywhere in Chicago–
this angel sculpture was on the median strip of an intersection

This cool sculpture was outside the post office,
see Craig waving from the right side of the photo

Chigaco is a beautiful, arty city, and there's a lot to see (we also found FANTASTIC coffee at Intelligentsia, thanks for the tip, Dennis!!!).



Today we took it easy and had a walk through the city and visited Sears Tower, which up until 1996 was the tallest building in the world.

The Sears Tower people seem a bit sore that their building is no longer the tallest, and take every opportunity to remind people that the building still sports the world's tallest roof antennas (nearly 300 feet).

View of the city from Sears Tower

Of course, good old Mayor Dick Daley was on hand to welcome us at the top of Sears Tower :
We also found today's junk food item, although we didn't eat it:
Mo's Bacon Bar... it's chocolate with real bacon bits. Scary.

Our new favourite tv ad :)

The cool and creamy centre...

Written by: Craig
City: Chicago
Weather: Snowing like you wouldn't BELEEF!

Like FULLY FOR REAL IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE BOOYAH! We arrived in Chicago about 3.30pm local time for some chilly drizzle, and took a taxi the 4 blocks from the train station (dragging luggage through drizzle just isn't fun). And it wasn't long after that we saw snow falling out the window of the Hilton. YES THAT'S RIGHT HILTON BITCHES! Okay, we got lucky -- we booked a hotel through a site where it's super cheap, but you don't find out which hotel you've booked until AFTER you've paid the money. Crazy mystery. And for $79 a night, we got a funky room at the Hilton! It's NUTS! We were expecting the Roach Inn. We're happy here. Oh yes.

Here's some notes about the last few days:

San Diego was great -- we stayed (enjoying utmost hospitality!) with Crystal's cousins Jim & Linda, and their daughter, the Energy Tornado that is Barbra! There were restaurants, piano bars, vegan lunches... gold! The hardest part, though, was when Barbra took us to her favourite thing of all, Bikram Yoga. We've taken yoga before, but we've never done it IN 41 DEGREES CELCIUS IN A STEAMY HUMID ROOM GOOD LORD. Crystal stayed the course, I abandoned ship in a crazy fit of overheating and anxiety and made puddles with my dripping head in the change room. Bikram 1, Craig 0.

We were woken the following morning by the Navy Seals training in the military base directly behind Jim & Linda's house, running with their commander at 6am... AND NO SHIT, THEY WERE DOING THE SINGING CHANTING THING WITH THE "YO LEYAAAFT RAAAAHT LEYAAAFT". I thought it only happened in Stripes. America is a funny place.

But anyway, we had a great time in San Diego, thanks again to Jim, Linda and Barbra! Now we're in Chicago, which looks part The Warriors and part Fargo.

And that's that!

Oh yeah... about 15 times between landing in Chicago and getting to the hotel, we saw welcome signs by the Mayor of this town, Richard M Daley. Which lead us to think... "Dick Daley, it's more of a prescription than a name..."

Badoom-CH! Thanks, we'll be here all week. No really, we will.

Photo time:

The sun sets over San Diego

Hands-free "Jedi" bins are in the blood... Crystal's dad has the same one!

Vegan grocery store. Sweet, sweet thaaames...

They even have Bible bread

It looks so peaceful from the outside... not 41 degrees of crying like a beebeee

Crystal & Craig arrive in Chicago

Snow over Chicago, great for tourists, the locals are less excited

Nighttime, and still the snow falls. Outside the HILTON, BITCHES! =P
Owwraaayt!

Night and Day -- Stopmotion Diner Action

Written by Crystal
City: San Diego

This is from last night on our way home from the Shout bar...


Thanks to the Night and Day Diner we are also able to bring you today's junk food item:

Poppers!

Poppers are green peppers, stuffed with cheese (two kinds; white or yellow -- I'm not sure what the difference is beyond that), then crumbed and deep fried. Only in America, or possibly Mexico as well.

These were a great late-night snack! Definitely an artery-solidifying 3 out of 5 (4 out of 5 when you add hot-sauce).

Tomorrow we are off to Chicago. It's bloody freezing, so much so that it's possible our flights may be cancelled due to ice storms...

Could this be where our holiday goes to shit?
STAY TUNED!

San Diego -- Let the madness begin!

Written by Crystal City: San Diego Weather: Mild, a little cloudy

No time to post details, so we'll let the photos do the talking!

Barbra and Maile kickstart the shenanigans

Posing as a Greek fisherman and an executive cowgirl, Craig and Crystal gain entry to Shout

Maile RAAAAAWKS!

"I founds me a cuzzin, paaaaw, kin aaah keep it?"

Bananarama, the later years

Terror settled slowly

Barbra relives the running of the bulls

Up to me cheeks in geeks

Written by Craig
City: San Francisco
Weather: Chilly. I've cracked out the oil heater.

Wow, conventions can really chew up time, but it's been awesome. Much learning, good talks, catching up with friends, and being surrounded by thousands of nerds, it's what the GDC (Game Developers Conference) is all about! Not to mention the SHWAAAG (which in today's case was a lightsaber bottle opener from LucasArts)

There's not that much that's blog-worthy, except to make the note that the convention is being held in the Moscone Center, and whenever I see or hear the word 'Moscone', I think of the word 'Marconi', then no matter what I do, my brain starts blasting the lyrics, "Marconi plays the mumba, listen to the radio," and IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO GET "WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL" OUT OF MY FREAKIN' HEAD THEN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME. Thank you. And hey, if you want to suffer with me on this one, then listen to this and see if YOU can get it out of YOUR head! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxGGckAc1rs

We had a big and fun night last night, involving Olive restaurant/cocktail bar and the Ha-Ra Club, but I'll leave that to Crystal to tell with the photos (she's in LA now). I started today with coffee at our fave place, then finally had the Huevos Rancheros that I've been busting for for years. They were GOOD YES!

And OH MAN, I forgot to mention that Crystal took me out to this awesome old theatre (the Castro) to watch the Bladerunner Final Cut for our anniversary! What an awesome surprise! Deadly popcorn with about a litre of butter on it, massive Coke, awesome film, hyeppy thaaames!

That's all I got. Here are some pictures!

Yes, a Half Life 2 hat can be pretty geeky...

... but some things just can't be out-geeked

Hangin' wit ma nerd posse (ONYA, TONE!)

Respect to the fathers of the industry and the 'Pong' they invented!

Bladerunner at The Castro... could it BE more cool?!

Admit Two (sci fi nerds)

It looks so harmless and fun before the butter rains down

This awesome old man played the organ before the movie

Japanese food afterwards

ISN'T THE POPCORN ENOUGH??? Crystal sugars out on fruit chews

Sweet, sweet Huevos Rancheros! Breakfast of champions.

I don't know how this photo fits in, but it surely couldn't be left out

Coming Soon - A New Post!

Written by Crystal
City: The O.C. (don't call it that)
Weather: Warmer, overcast, a little rainy, about 15 degrees



Just wanted to let you know I'll be posting tomorrow morning, just having some techno troubles that are preventing me from downloading pics etc...



...except this one, which shows me holding up my dinner tonight:

BEHOLD, the APPETIZER-SIZED NACHOS!!!

Of course, Craig is still in San Francisco so may be posting from there tonight, but I'd be surprised if he didn't head straight for bed tonight (big night last night, viva la Ha-Ra!)..

Until tomorrow...

GOOD Coffee, SFMOMA and Hilary & Pascal 2: Electric Boogaloo

Written by Crystal
Weather: Cold and rainy, about 10C

Hooray for Cafe Ramind, they're a block down from our hotel
and they CAN MAKE COFFEE!

And good french toast, too.

Given that I'd been focusing on the NYC leg of our journey, I'd missed the fact that San Francisco has a Museum of Modern Art too! So this was my destination for today.

I must confess, I'd actually planned to see SFMOMA yesterday, but a midday flake-out saw me staggering back to the hotel for a nanna-nap.. hence, the biggest news from yesterday was that I'd found and purchased Flight of the Conchords (Season 1) on DVD :)

The gallery didn't open until 11 so I popped over to the SF Ferry Terminal to check out the farmer's market.

Gourmets unite! At the Farmer's Market

There was a statue of Ghandi in what seemed to be the middle of the car park... Not sure why it was there, but it was nice.

The Bay Bridge

We all know that other people's gallery visits are boring things to hear about, so I'll just say that it was definitely worth a walk through the chilly rain (that saturated my supposedly waterproofed shoes), I got to see Duchamp's Fountain, and the Olafur Eliasson exhibition Take Your Time blew my mind.

View of SFMOMA from the art school across the street

Then, it was off to Hilary & Pascal's for some fully-for-real enchiladas! H&P live in San Jose (about 45 min drive south of SF), so we boarded a VERY TALL TRAIN (the Caltrain) with Tony, bound for San Jose.

It's a really tall train... really

Our new favourite kitchen utensil, the Mexican citrus squeezer

Cheers! Best margarita I've tasted, no contest

And as is their custom, H&P treated us to AWESOME margaritas, SPECTACULAR enchiladas, as well as today's junk food item, Dreyer's Grand Dulche de Leche Ice-Cream.

I'm sure it goes straight to your arteries

Ohhhhhh it's GOOOD. Really, really creamy ice-cream laced with thick ribbons of caramel. Definitely rates 4 out of 5 blocked arteries (thanks to James for suggesting the rating system!)