Chi-town, day 2 & 3

So what if I'm already home? It's still fun to look back at days 2 & 3 of my Chicago work-trip adventure.

Day 2 in Chi-town at the UNITY conference brought about an early start. We wanted to get to our booth bright and early to make sure we got a good parking spot and a chance to scope out the free goodies at all the booths before the other exhibitors got there. (No, it's not stealing. They WANT you to take the stuff... or at least they want the attendees to take the stuff.)

I scored some good (worthless) gear: a sports water bottle from Dow Jones, a bouncy-ball thingy from The Washington Post, a cookie cigar from the Tampa Bay booth, a handful of chapsticks courtesy of Lilly (the drug company who also funds my organization), one of those post-it pens from Oprah's booth, gum, notebooks, books, bags, you name it! No need to buy anything to bring home on this trip, no sir-ee!

At lunch on that day, I took some pictures of (most) of the tradeshow.

View to the left:



View to the right (we're in the 1400 row if you can make out the numbers).



And yes, that was a car in the front. They gave away at least TWO cars for this show.

Here's my boss, Debra, chatting up two perspective folks.



At the close of exhibit hours, we decided to make a break for dinner at this Ethiopian restaurant we'd spotted the day before when we were out driving around. I've never had Ethiopian food, so I was psyched (no really!).

The restaurant was understated and homey on the inside:



I ordered a beer called Bati to get the ball rolling. It tasted very Bud Lightish, so it was right up my alley.



After a 15-minute study of the long menu, Debra and I each settled on samplers of dishes. They brought out our selections on a large, round platter, the bottom covered with a spongy, sourdough tasting bread.

This is the cool part: Ethiopians don't use utensils. Instead, they scoop up their food with pieces of bread—the afore-mentioned spongy bread.

I wish I could remember each of the dishes, but I can tell you they included (generally speaking): yellow lentils, spicy stuff, spinach, carrots, spicy shrimp, honey beef, fried chick peas, and red spicy lentils. The salad in the middle is just a run-of-the-mill veggie salad, with a vinaigrette dressing. I suspect it's supposed to play a large role in cooling off the palette between bites of fiery yumminess.



So did I like the food? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, I understand there's a restaurant in downtown Columbus called Blue Nile. I think I'm going to have to take a willing soul there for dinner or lunch one night. (Any takers?)

There was just one snag in our dining experience that night. When we left the restaurant, we couldn't find our car. It was G-O-N-E GONE! We thought it had been stolen until a generous passerby said he saw a car matching our description being towed from the lot just a few minutes earlier. Damn! A (tiny) sign on a street lamp confirmed for us that indeed, our car had been towed and here was the number we could call to find out where we could retrieve it.

We learned we had a four-block walk to the towing place. So off we went, me wobbling on my heels and Debra hobbling on her bad feet (she's got heel issues). It was starting to get dark by this time, so we were hustling along at a pretty good clip—particularly since we weren't headed toward the greatest neighborhood.

By the time we got there, we were sticky in our business wear and our feet were aching. Like all other tow yards, this one was scary. It could have been a backdrop for an inner-city gang movie, or perhaps a set for Candyman 2 (a really creepy movie for those of you not familiar). We shelled out $170 big ones, and hightailed it back to downtown and the comfort of our hotel rooms. Sweet relief!

Day 3—going home today!
After a fitfull night of sleep, I got up at 5:30 and waited for my morning greeting from David & Noah on their way to the sitter's house. As I waited, I snapped this sunrise shot out my hotel room window:



Just a few hours later, I was back in the convention center, pushing our products and programs on the 6,000+ attendees of this year's UNITY conference. I worked the booth by myself all morning, and then left at noon to make the trek to the airport.

The next 10 hours were all travel. I went up and down four gangways, sat through two flights, and was grateful to see my car waiting for me in long-term parking.

And after three days in a busy city, I was so, so happy to hear a lot of... nothing. I could smell sweet, green grass, and all I saw was trees and stars. That, my friends, is my idea of home. It is so good to be back!