Hobart: 2nd Edition

Written by: Craig
City: New York
Weather: Not bad! Around 9C, rain seems to be staying away


Hoorah, we have some time to write! Admittedly, it's coz I'm sick as a daaawg, holed up in our New York apartment (WELL LAAA DEE DAAAH!) while Crystal is out shopping like a foo-ell in Chelsea (the town, not the presidential daughter, that would be just kinda icky).

So hey, let's go back in time a few days and we'll hit Hobart in some more detail.

First up, we'd passed a popcorn shop several times in Chicago, felt it was a bit of a legendary store, so we picked up a bucket of INSANE TASTY CARAMEL NUT POPCORN to take along to the cousins. Here's a photo of, like, popcorn in the store:

Garrett Popcorn, Chicago. Nuggets of caramelised, nutty death.

We took a nice train trip from Chicago, snow everywhere, and got picked up in a high-crime, largely abandoned town called Gary (houses boarded up everywhere, used to be a lot nicer, but has suffered). But the greeting was nice, from Jan and Tom -- less than a day after Tom had his misbehaving appendix escorted from the building! What a man!

Here's where Jan and Tom live now, Hobart, all snowy and peaceful and neighbourhoodly:

Hobart, with evidence of a lazy person

Neighbour George, sorts out the neighbourhood with his Snow Blower.

In Hobart, we got to check out the Chakos family business, a print shop, and help out as best we could. Crystal got into it mightily, working the printing press, proofing with her eagle eye, and sewing until she BROKE THE SEWING MACHINE! :P Nothing serious, but here she is, workin' it:

Tom pitches to Crystal

I was crashing hard from a cold at this point, and flaked out when we got back to Chakos Central, as did the new cousin Jordan, after his 6 hour drive from Louisville to see us and the family. When we all woke, we found we'd been given free tickets to a Chicago Bulls basketball game, from the nice, snow-blowing neighbour, George. Like SWOIT! $120 each, and we gots 'em FREEBIES! So cousin Theo drove Crystal, Jordan and I, and we hooned back to Chicago for the game. Here are some pics:

Great seats, exciting game!

The mascot was clinically insane, but pretty funny

A quarter-time competition where people had to dance like FOO-ELLS to earn small amounts of McDonald's food. You'll need to dance more than THAT, ya fat bastids.

So this guy is the only one standing up, waving what appears to be underpants to the cheerleaders, while sporting the word 'bush' on his shirt. This photo really needs no caption.

Junkfood of the Day. Basketball nachos with artery-chokin' cheese and painful, tasty jalapenos (rating: 3/5)

The next morning, we crawled out of bed and bid farewell to the wonderful Chakos family... but that's a story for the next catchup blog. Coz fully, I'm STILL knackered with this cold, so it's time for bed, yes!

Rock out!