We ate quickly at the hotel spread, and then walked into the chilly streets. We went down a couple of blocks to the subway entrance, climbed down steep stairs and put our one dollar bills into the CTA vending machine. We put enough in to get us a subway ride as well as a bus ride.
The subway reminds me of the Underground in London. It’s old but serviceable, and people tend to obey the rules and keep it clean. Once we went a couple of blocks, we climbed back up into the daylight, went down another block and immediately caught the “3” bus. Another clean bus! The two men at the driver’s seat were very friendly, and showed me how to insert my CTA card – upside down.
The 3 took us to Hyde Park, which is where Val lived when she was attending the University of Chicago Divinity School, and incidentally where Barack Obama currently lives. Our bus ride was probably a good 20 minutes when Val said, “Let’s get off here.”
We walked in her old neighborhood when we decided that a local Greek restaurant called Salonica on 57th Street seemed a good place to get lunch. When she had visited the place before, she could only afford to order coffee. Times have changed, we thought, as we ordered a full breakfast rather than lunch.
Then we went out again into the brisk air and walked another 15 minutes to the school. The purpose of this visit was to visit the Co-Op bookstore, and she had to find it by memory. Once we located the entrance into what looked like a church, we took a flight of stairs down into the bookstore. I perused the shelves, not with any intent on buying anything, while she went to work seeing what would work for her work.
While I was looking at a paperback version of Wind in the Willows, I heard two young men talking in the bookstacks about Obama. “Yeah, it’s amazing to think that he’s a member, too.” A member of the Co-op. Cool.
I went out to the foyer, still a little cool but protected from the wind, to wait. About half an hour later, she came up and sat down next to me, proudly showing me four new books.
We went on back down the road toward the bus stop, but I had been whining for pie, so we stopped at another of her old haunts. The Medici bakery had a restaurant next to it, obviously a student hangout, and we both ordered the apple pie a la mode. The menu advertised that it would take 15 minutes to heat the pie (“we don’t use microwaves”), and they weren’t kidding. 
We were surprised and awed when the pie came out with a glop of melting vanilla ice cream on top, sitting in a dish. The crust was home-made, and delicate. The pie itself had cinnamon all over it. The whole concoction was delicious. And we needed the dish.After that necessary little excursion, we went back to the hotel along Michigan Avenue. It’s awesome to see the Chicago skyline against Lake Michigan.
We didn’t go directly back to the hotel, though, as I wanted some souvenirs. We stopped at a mall and went into both a Chicago shop and a sports shop. I was able to find a White Sox t-shirt that had the ALCS on it and all the players listed on the back. Several of those players, of course, are ex-A’s players.
We ended up eating dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, which was only a block away from the hotel. Good thing, too, as the temperature was dropping as night fell.
Night was spent in the hotel watching news about the election. November 4th is getting closer.
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