The Roommate Reunion Continues

I was blessed in college to share living spaces with some amazing women. As roommates and close friends we shared shoes, sweaters, dishes, dresses, food, (lots of) drink, bathrooms, and (sometimes) beds - with a surprisingly small amount of conflict. In the years since college we have come to appreciate that those relationships, though not always easy, created bonds that are not easily broken. And we're kind of addicted to each other. Though we (have) live(d) in Alaska, Canada, Washington, California, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, and Georgia there is an understanding that the distances will not separate us for more than about a year at a time. (And that email conquers all!)

The Roommate Reunion Tour, as we like to call it, made a stop in Chicago a couple weekends ago, bringing Julia from California and Carrie from D.C. to party-hearty with myself, Carissa, and Stephanie. (Added bonus: Carrie brought her man, Stephen, who is altogether fabulous, so we could finally meet him!) Some photo proof:

I took a vacation day from work to spend it with Julia eating nearly everything on the menu at Tre Kroner and making the hike downtown to the Field Museum to take advantage of Free February. It had been years since I had been to the Field, and I was not disappointed.

The famous Sue. She is pretty cool. And did you know that this is not her actual skull/face/jaw that is mounted on the skeleton? The real deal is in the balcony above the skeleton, in a case, because it weighs something like 400 pounds and could not be held up by the skeleton alone.

The museum was followed by the mandatory trip to our old watering hole, the Claddagh Ring, for some drink, word games, jukebox music, and all sorts of photos.

Yay, Stephanie!

The next day we grabbed Carissa and headed back downtown to the Art Institute, which was also free during February (and every Tuesday all year long!).

"Eve After the Fall" by Rodin. I love this sculpture. It is captivating.

We headed over to Millennium Park to do the "tourist" thing, which neither Carissa nor I do very often.

There was a fantastic Chicago sunset going on behind us, though it is hard to see in the photo. This was the first weekend I had spent much time downtown, and especially outside, in several months, and I was reminded how great this city is: it is easy to forget there is so much more to Chicago than North Park and Lincoln Square; and it is easy to forget how beautiful the city can be in the dead center of a dreary winter.

If you can believe it, this is the first time I've taken pictures at Cloud Gate (or "The Bean" as it is commonly known.)

During February, Millennium Park featured an art exhibit called "Modern Ice." These multi-colored sheets of ice sculptures were awesome looking - and were never the same two days in a row!


We warmed up with some Chari-tea at Argo Tea. Not only is this a tasty treat alternative to coffee, a portion of the profits from the Chari-tea drink at Argo are currently being donated to Carissa's fund raising event for the American Cancer Society.

Sunday afternoon we went out to Schaumburg to meet up with Carrie before she headed back to our nation's capital.