Less is More.: 20- Vicky Visits From China to Chicago

A couple years ago, my brother and my dad went to China. They went with Chris's college roommate (Isaac Garcia), to visit said roommate's dad who works over there sometime- and of course clearly to see China. Well his roommate's dad had a nice coworker who was Chinese but spoke good English and was great for showing them around. Well she'd be wanting to visit the US, so she finally came, first flying to Texas, then driving up with aforementioned roommate and his parents. They hung out in South Bend with my family, and then came to Chicago to see the big city (and hang out with me).

I gave them a good little walking tour of some places, we got deep dish pizza, my dad decided it'd be fun to go to a Bulls game (it was) and bought tickets for us all. I felt bad cause they were expensive, but grateful at the opportunity. I don't exactly get to go to Bulls games...though I wouldn't generally want to pay the ticket prices either.

Anyway, here was our view. For some reason Vicky (that's just her American name so her English-speaking co-workers had something pronounceable to call her) really loved NBA basketball, so she was thrilled to go to a game.

Up above us were retired jersey numbers. THAT was cool, cause those were players from back when I actually watched the Bulls. Or the NBA. Or pro sports period.

And also all the banners from championships and stuff. And in the distance, banners from the Blackhawks also. Lots of em, including the recent Stanley Cup banner.

They also had a huge jumbo tron. They used it for lots of entertaining things like getting the fans to boo- by putting up a Green Bay Packers logo. I thought that was hilarious. (Bears fans hate the Packers).

HERE was the highlight of the night- when the Bulls scored over 100 points (AND were clearly gonna win) cause we got some handout thing before the game saying that if that happened, we won free Big Macs. Me and Vicky were getting really excited when it was getting close. And we were watching the scoreboard. The crowd went nuts. I thought it was hilarious. Cause I was going nuts too- and I got like five free Big Macs cause everyone else gave me their tickets :D

Also, it got me wondering- they must notify the local McDonalds, or else the manager watches the game or something- cause there were like 20,000 fans there. If even say, 100 of those fans decided to hit the same nearest McDonalds, they'd be SWAMPED. And that's GOTTA happen- so what do they do? Interesting question to which I don't know the answer...

We also walked around the promenade, where I found out that I had almost as long of fingers as Shaq but he has HUGE palms...and the same size palms as Michael Jordan but he had WAY longer fingers.

Here's all of us at the game- even a few people managed to wear red! Good work. I failed. I had red stripes on my shirt though...

Joachim Noah. His arms are a little longer than Vicky.

Here's my glass topped desk with my lists of buildings to see in Chicago for making plans to tour guide them around. I had long lists. And then mapped em all out, and then made an order of buildings to see. It was a grand master plan that didn't completely work out, but I tried, and apparently they were grateful.

Of course we went to see the bean.

And here's our deep dish pizza time at Gino's, my personal favorite. My dad decided to write Vicky's name on the wall with White-Out (borrowed from the waitress) while Vicky and the Garcias walked down Michigan Ave. while we waited for our pizza.

Here's a nice completely-out-of-order photo- While they were in South Bend, Isaac's sister Rita and her then-fiancee-now-husband, who went to Tulsa, came to South Bend for the Notre Dame-Tulsa game. And stayed with my family also.

Back to the Chicago visit at hand- we went to Macy's to check out the Christmas decorations.

Back in Millennium Park. Mixed up photos. Yknow.

One of my favorite buildings in Chicago. I don't care what other people say. And we hadta get close so I could show em what it was like when the glass starts disappearing and all you see is the concrete balconies.

We stopped by the Apple Store. I mean how can you not.

Oh. Good. Another photo out of order. What the heck is going on here? How did this happen? Anyway, Vicky liked that her name mysterious was up on the wall (we ended up telling her how it got there).

Later that day we went to Lincoln Park Zoo (free!) and also went to the uh...I forget the name- the greenhouse with plants in it. Check out these monster seed pod things. It was like a tropical jungle in there. Hot and humid. And exotic crazy plants. Pretty cool!