Chicago Party Bus Light Tour

 

Yesterday Travalon and I had the day off of work, so we drove to Chicago and took a party bus light tour. We had to go to a bar called the Beercade, which was full of video and pinball games but had surprisingly bougie pizza. This bar was a lot of fun and had all sorts of crazy Christmas decorations. For example, it looks like they have my number!

Travalon tried to take a picture of me sitting under the sign, but you can't read it in this photo.

His sign showed up better.

I love this random motivational sign!

This giant animatronic teddy bear gave us hugs!

 

Niko hid on the Christmas tree briefly.

More decorations.

Then we got on the party bus. Isn't it beautiful?

We ended up in the back of the bus, sitting by two crazy middle-aged women who were Jewish... on a Christmas bus? Everyone around us was a mother, sister, or friend of the girl doing the announcing. It was kind of crazy watching a woman my age and her twenty-something twin daughters sing all the words to dirty hip hop songs as they got blasted together on a bus celebrating a holiday that they don't believe in. They were so much fun! The mom gave me a jingle bell bracelet.

Our first stop was the German Christmas Market. We did get some stuff, like this cute bull.

We also got glass ornaments from Germany of the flags of Croatia, Ireland, and Hungary, and our mulled wine came in a commemorative mug.

Our next stop was the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights.

Check it out! It's the Chicago skyline!

This Ferris Wheel wasn't running. The carousel appeared to be, yet nobody was riding it.

Travalon thought this heart looked like Niko.

We saw several holiday trolleys on the street.

The cutest one was orange and green, but it was too far away to get a good photo. Here is a photo of a very sparkly street right near our hotel.

By the time we walked back to our hotel room, we had gone seven and a half miles, so we just went to bed. We must be old, because we were so happy that the party bus tour was done at ten. It was certainly a wild enough four hours so we felt like we had really partied before calling it a night! Our favorite part was when these guys were having a pole dancing competition. Travalon, who wants my readers to know that he is out of practice, was afraid they would make him join them, but fortunately just then the bus got back to the Beercade.

Today we met some relatives of mine for brunch. The little kids didn't seem very impressed with me, and then when we went to see my aunt's "new" house (which is actually her old house because it's the one she grew up in), her cat said hi to everyone but me. How odd, usually I am a big hit with kids and animals. I must be losing my touch. I said how cats usually LOVE me, like they can tell I'm allergic so I'm the one they make a beeline for, and my aunt said Murray is a very thoughtful cat, so he knew I was allergic and stayed away. He did say hi to me eventually, but he really loved Travalon and my uncle. Maybe he is a guy's cat. Unfortunately my cousin who lives in Michigan wasn't there with his family, because the last time I saw their little girl she was barely talking, and now my aunt says she talks all the time and says really funny stuff. I always love hearing how kids' minds work. Of course, that got to be a pain when I was teaching catechism and they would interrupt to tell me something, but nine times out of ten it wasn't some deep spiritual insight but just a recounting of a movie they had just seen, or something irrelevant like that. Still, that tenth time would blow my mind, so I always let them do it. Kids can be so amazing sometimes.

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