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| proof of teenage life. |
OK here I am…! I waited to write the Chicago edition until we had seen both schools.
I’ll do the overview of the schools first because you people seem on the edge of your seats; and then you can skip the part on Chicago if you need to.
Northwestern was surprisingly wonderful. I know! I am also surprised. The presentation offered up a vision of a school of smart kids who may not know what they want to do with their lives when they enter, but here they will be taught and mentored and cheered on until they do. Then a perfect internship in Mexico City or New York City will be arranged, and they will graduate with a job and a strong sense of self and some of the best friends a person could ask for. It’s what a school would be like if well-meaning, evolved parents of millennials started a school for their 5,000 children: challenging and nurturing, yes. But libraries would also be closed for one day the week before finals so you can attend a concert, because you need to blow off steam for God’s sake. And take your vitamin D…!
I am not kidding, it was laughably perfect. Which means of course that it is probably not for us. Thomas really liked it, but wondered aloud how a person would survive in the wild after this.
University of Chicago by contrast is darker, smarter, and older. It is ivy covered and gothic; oak paneled and gorgeous. Where Northwestern had little sailboats patiently waiting on the beach for spring to come, U Chicago is surrounded by of the worst neighborhoods in the United States. But we were pleasantly surprised by how un scary the neighborhood seemed. Security is everywhere- even off-campus there are these little panic buttons you can push and the police will come in one minute flat. Clearly it is a bigger league school for science- It is basically MIT in Chicago…all very bad ass but more mid western and humble about it. The unofficial motto is “where fun comes to die” and I can see it, but the kids were so nice- we got asked if we needed directions, and given lots of genuine hellos. Frederick says his fantasy schools are still that little one in Pasadena or that one in England, but he would be happy at either of the Chicago schools. So all in all a good trip.
Ok now a little on the city itself where we stayed in the “second best hotel in the United States.” The first best is, apparently in Lanai, which means it is not as good if you grade on a weather curve. But seriously the Peninsula is excellent- service is Austrian-ish and the beds are perfect and they pretty much think of everything.
Here is the bad news on Chicago: the weather, obviously (more on that later), the flatness, and the Starbucks vs Peet's ratio. Oh and that ridiculous pizza. The good news is the prices, some of the food, the lake (surprisingly because I don’t gravitate towards things without a tide) but most of all- the people and the comedy. Chicago is very kind and very funny. It is odd how nice the people are- they chat and let you go first and ask if you are lost. Perhaps the lower rents just cheer everyone the hell up. I decided to try to reciprocate and gave a perhaps overly jolly hello to some people who were coming out of Banana Republic as F and I were going in. Then I complimented myself by saying how I was blending right in. His retort was as solid as any he has made in the last few years: “No mommy, you didn’t look like them, you look like a New Yorker who is having the third best day of her life”.
Second city is the famous improv group started by some University of Chicago students and where basically every person you have ever seen on Saturday night live (as well as Stephen Colbert) got his start. It’s this little theater and a group of six do little skits mixed in with improv. We made a pilgrimage.
For one skit the group got on stage and said they were three couples at a dinner party, each with a secret . Then they asked the audience to tell them what that secret was. The audience yelled out ‘getting divorced’, ‘wanting a six-some’; and ‘changing their name to Neil’. Now, as a person who grew up around funny and has a keen sense of what it is…this was like watching Tiger Woods hit a six irons at the driving range. It was repeated perfection.
You are laughing with one part of your brain, while the other part is just gaping at the genius. I tired so hard to figure out how they do it- how does one half of the couple so seamlessly get the gist of what the other is trying to do? The Neilses were the funniest- it was just so ridiculous. Their take was they were named Slivowitch and they wanted to pick the sexiest possible name, so they went with Neil. An added twist was they were just bursting with pride over it, and didn't want to let it out just yet. It was just insanely funny and brilliant and the speed so warped that you had no choice but to sit back and say: “God might live; and he seems to be in a good mood.”
What else? Oh the weather…. Chicago was having a semi heat wave, with temperatures around 40. But of course that means nothing, because of the wind off of the lake: if that is blowing, all bets are off. Weirdly the cold seems to follow you around too- when you get back to your fluffy hotel room, you are still cold. Because people still have their gooses on, the restaurants are also freezing. Thomas broke down and bought one, and not being able to resist, I bought a smaller goose and wore two on Michigan avenue. The saleslady told us (I told you they were chatty) that the store is like the Chicago commodities trading floor back in the day where you could get killed while trying to buy corn futures. She says once the store had a gas leak and people wouldn’t stop shopping. One guy grabbed her by her shirt and and told her to keep selling because he wanted 10 (list price- $13,000).
The production is all very Canadian: the coyote fur for the collar comes from coyotes who are humanely killed while sung lullabies, and same for the geese. And when a color runs out, it is out. No going to a Vietnamese sweatshop to make more. It’s Canadian grandmothers who sew and no one else.
Some other moments- the Wehlen trio does not buy the whole deep dish pizza thing. It offends both our wimpy caloric maximum, and our love of ratios. The cheese to bread to topping ratio on a Chicago deep dish is a joke. I mean it: they are making fun of you.
So I did my research on the best pizza in Chicago.
The concierge told me he understood: he too preferred thin crusts. He too was sick of being pushed around by deep dish lovers. Then he said the most compelling words a concierge can say: ‘it is usually a long wait, but we can get you in. Also we heard somehow, (although Thomas and I are arguing about where that was) it was Oprah’s favorite. We are excited; I am cocky. I actually ask the team to thank me and give me hive fives because Mommy did it again.
In retrospect there were ominous signs all around us. First there were televisions on every wall, like in a sports bar. There are TV’s in basically every restaurant in Chicago- and it’s a mood killer. Even if you have absolutely no interest in the penguins vs the antelopes of Canada, you will stare over your kids head like a crazed fan. And the second sign was that they called a ‘Margarita pizza’ a ‘cheese’ pizza. Thomas kept mentioning this, but I ignored him because I was ordering cheap red wine and talking to the owner about Oprah- rapping about thin crust and how cool it was and how deep dishers just didn’t get it. The owner tells me that this pizza was rated the best in Chicago, and the fourth best in the country. (the specificity!) I ask for more high fives.
So they eventually bring the pizza in what was an almost comical Ta DA!!!!! and it is merely a slightly shallower deep dish. Thomas tells me in German that they have brought the wrong one and I need to tell them. But no. This is the thin crust pizza. This is as thin as they get in Chicago. It is so bad after such a huge build up that it feels like we are on candid camera. We ate a little and then lied to the man and said we had had chemo that day and couldn’t do more, but we definitely needed a to-go bag, yes even for a hotel room; gosh thanks so much. And then we did garbage tourism and threw it out -the world famous, Oprah favorite, can’t believe we got a table there Chicago thin crust pizza.
I guess we don’t speak Chicago. But they really are lovely people- and even when they don’t think they want to make you laugh, they do.
Ill post the photos later…but it was so cold, we didn’t take many.
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| At tragically hip Dark Matter coffee shop |
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| Taken out of the window of the bus |
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| Northwestern University where it was so windy the guide had to yell. Thomas and I in the back plotting our escape. |
