Welllllp, I don't know if anyone wants to hear about my adventures in Chicago, but I'm going to post about it anyway. ;)

First and foremost, I asked Katie to marry me and she said yes!  Sweet.  PLEASE DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS ON MYSPACE OR FACEBOOK.  I'm still making my rounds to speak to certain people in person about it and ask them if they'd like to be my groomsman.  I may even have a groomswoman. 8-)

Ok, so let's see...this is going to be long, so prepare to read.

For reference, the El is the above ground subway.

Friday, August 14th - We arrive at O'Hare airport from Chattanooga (which was the most relaxing airport ever, by the way (Chattanooga, that is)) and got on the El.  We got off at the wrong stop because Chicago was more confusing to get around than Japan was if you can believe that.  Our map also sucked.  A nice guy came and helped us find our way to the hotel, but it was a longer walk than what he made it out to be.  Let that last statement be foreshadowing...

We checked in to our hotel and then went to eat at a Costa Rican place called Irazu.  I ate a delicious veggie burrito and had an awesome watermelon and lime juice.  After that, we tried to go eat some dessert from a place called Icream...yes, that is what it's called, and no, it's not what you're thinking.  It was an ice cream place where you can make your own crazy ice cream and you can use soy milk.  We tried to go to this place two different days, but it just never happened.  I guess something had broken the first time, and the second time they weren't open.  We went to see 88 Fingers Louie play a secret show for the people who came in from out of state after that.  They even had the show catered and gave everyone free drinks, but we didn't eat and only drank water.  It was amazing.

Saturday, August 15th -  We get up and go eat brunch at a place called Handlebar.  I got Vegan Diablos, Katie got Vegan French Toast.  It was pretty good, but it was A LOT of food, and we couldn't eat it all.  We tried going to Icream again, but it wasn't open, but you already knew that if you read the previous paragraph.  After that, we tried to go see Frank Lloyd Wright's house.  He's the father of modern architecture, and I like that kind of crap and studied some of his stuff in high school.  We get off of the El, notice that there is a bus that takes people to his house, but we had missed it by one minute.  ONE MINUTE.  There was a lady working at the El and I asked her how to get to his house.  She said to take a right out of the El station and then take a left on another street.  First of all, she made it seem like it was just down the street, which it wasn't, and second of all, there were numerous signs pointing in different directions to get to his house and made it 100 times more confusing than it should've been.  We're walking, and we're walking, and we're walking, and we finally make it to Frank's house.  There were a lot of people sitting around outside, and we spotted a girl working at a desk.  We walk up, ask for two tickets, and she tells us that they had sold the last ticket for the day.  I almost fell over in anger and frustration.  Anyway, we had passed Ernest Hemingway's house on the way there, so we decided that we didn't walk 5,000 miles for no reason and we toured his house.  We got the short short version of the tour because we got there late, but we didn't care.  His house was pretty neat.

We get back on the El and go to the venue that 88 Fingers Louie were having their official reunion show at.  The road it was on is a spot where a lot of movies do their filming, such as the Dark Knight and the Blues Brothers.  Keep in mind that I had the engagement ring the whole time in my lower pocket and kept directing Katie to certain seats so she wouldn't feel it.  She somewhat questioned it, but didn't really pay attention to that.  Anyway, we go inside the venue, sit down, and ordered dinner.  We were so tired by this point because we had walked around everywhere for the past two days.  We eat, lounged around for a little while, and went in to the show.  I had thought about asking Katie the big question at the show, there is a song of 88's that I used to sing to her all of the time when we started dating.  I decided against that because I thought it would be cheesy, or that she wouldn't understand what I was doing, or that I would lose the ring, or that someone would see and try to rob us or something.  88 plays for an hour and a half, it was amazing.  Katie really enjoyed the show, she had never gotten the chance to see them.  We go buy some merch, exit the venue, and head towards the Navy Pier.  The Navy Pier has a sweet fireworks display on Saturday nights, and we wanted to check that out.  I was planning on asking her at the Pier, too, but never got a chance.  There were thousands of people there and I didn't really want to do it in front of a bunch of random people.  We went through a funhouse that they have and was maybe going to ask her there, but a lady and her little girl latched on to us and followed us around the entire time.  We got out, passed the Billy Goat tavern where a Saturday Night Live skit was filmed, and walk back over to the buses.  We go back to the hotel.  We both sit down and take our shoes off to get comfortable.  Katie was really ill because she was so tired from all of our adventures, but I was determined to ask before the night was over.  She came and sat in a chair near me, and I got out of mine and crawled over to her, hugged her and asked her if I could ask her a question.  I pulled out the ring and asked her and she said yes.  She asked "why now?" in a joking manner and I told her "better late than never". ::)  After it set in that I had asked her, she cried (happy tears).  She loves the ring, by the way.  I wish I could post a picture of it, but I can't get a good one.  They're all blurry.

Ok, I'm going to have to continue this later, it's time to go home. ;)b
Sorry it's so long, I'm just excited.