http://flickr.com/photos/tallgirl/

Enjoy them!! I’ll try to link them at a later date, but must run to get coffee for gifts!!

My ticket is issued in the name of Rover. Yes, you read it right: Rover. It’s a boo-boo, but on Friday night (after the travel agency was closed) when I called United Airlines to add my Mileage Plus number to my itinerary (what, you think I shouldn’t get 11k miles for this trip?), they didn’t have anyone with my real last name on the plane. That took my breath away, just a bit… So I was kind of freaking out. The woman on the phone told me that if she tried to change it now, Lufthansa would cancel my ticket. Beg your pardon, what? I called the travel agency and they weren’t open, and had no open hours on Saturday… I now realized that on Monday morning, when they opened, I would have to camp out at the agency until they got it right…

It is now Sunday, nothing else has been resolved and I will go to Whole Foods first and then to NEWS Travel Agency to correct the mistake. Because I really don’t relish the idea of showing up in Frankfurt (or at O’Hare, either!) with a ticket in the name of Rover and all my ID with a different last name… So, wish me luck!!

My group has had a full day of getting to know one another – it’s been good fellowship time. I was asked today by one of the participants (there are 4 of us, Noelle and the three guys: Brandon, Kurt and Gary) how many brothers I had. It made me wonder what gave it away… apparently it was the rapid-fire responses I have for things. Kurt bought us “super-sharp cheddar” for our sandwiches. Brandon said, “It didn’t cut me at all.” Noelle: “Well, you obviously didn’t do it right.” And for that, I have to say thank you to Britt – staccato responses have become second nature… HA!

We had delicious pizza this evening and now I’m finishing the laundry… We learned about the history of the church in Russia and worship in the Orthodox style – it’s fascinating. I’m very excited to see the things I saw in 93 in St Petersburg, and also excited to see the things I didn’t get a chance to see. There is a Cathedral of Spilled Blood in Petersburg that I didn’t get to see in 93 (I think it was under a 5 year remodel or something), that is now open. It’s gorgeous, from the pictures I saw of the inside, and the outside was amazing.

I’m very much looking forward to taking new pictures, that I’ll be able to (maybe this is all hypothetical) catalog and then actually print. I need to do that for Thailand as well, though. We’ll see how long it takes me. But, since I haven’t really done it for the 93 trip’s photos, I have 13 years, I guess.

Chicago is still a fun town, and I’m glad I’ve had the chance to wander it! Church this morning was fun, we went to Lake View Presbyterian, up near Wrigley Field. After that, we wandered in the heat to check out Wrigley Field. There are houses across the street from the ballpark that have bleachers up there – it’s crazy!! But, it was fun to see – apparently it’s all catered and such… I don’t even want to know how much it costs! I couldn’t imagine living in one of them.

FYI – it’s been hot as heck here! And in Russia, in Moscow it may be 73 degrees in the daytime – so that’s about a 20 degree differential. Yippee! And St Petersburg looks to be a tad warmer. It’ll be a nice change!

On Thursday night I left LA and at LAX, I sat next to two former winners from CBS reality shows – the most recent Survivor and then one of the winners of The Amazing Race from a few years back – I eavesdropped to get tips… all they seemed to talk about was paparazzi, the lateness of their flight, and their shows and how unconnected they were to their co-stars.

I arrived in Chicago after a little over 4 hours of sleep on the plane. After which I promptly fell asleep waiting for my luggage. Yes, I’m silly. I got my luggage and texted my friend Amy who came to get me, after being woken up by my text – go me! I fell back asleep after she said she’d be late, yes, I did… We drove into the city on “The Kennedy” (aka Interstate 90) in Friday morning rush hour traffic and I was left off at the McCormick Seminary Guest Housing – a rather sweet pad, if I do say so myself. My first job of the day was to meet with the Dean of Students at the U of Chicago Divinity School – which was great. I enjoyed learning about the programs they have to offer and the campus is really nice. It made me miss UW and the Quad we had up there… such is life.

After a conference call with PARO, it was off to see the town with Amy and her husband Doug. We saw “The Bean,” and the Gehry-designed pavilion in Millenium Park. I have trippy photos from it, and will upload them soon. We walked a lot and a lot more. Saw a lot of things in downtown Chicago – some of the buildings are quite gorgeous! I liked wandering. The downtown area is massive, and it seemed like there were more tourists. Maybe I’m just conscious of them, because in LA I don’t find myself in places with copious amounts of tourists (Britt – do I get points for the use of copious, or only pshaw?).

We drove up Lake Shore drive – Chicagoans make great use of expanisive green spaces, I’m kind of jealous of it! I fell asleep on the drive (sorry AJ, I couldn’t keep my head up any longer) for a minute and then we were headed back downtown… I “let” AJ and Doug go home to a puppy and I wandered downtown by myself, until I met up with my church administrator, Rod, who was here for a conference.

I like surprising people and just told him that I was going to go to the Art Institute of Chicago’s museum, because it was free after 5pm… he was like, “uh, where are you?” We wandered the museum – he was on the hunt for the American Gothic painting, and I was on the hunt for Edgar Degas (shocking, I know!). We both found what we wanted and had to proceed back into the heated and humid outdoors. Man, if we thought it was humid in LA (it is, dangit!), whoa, it’s humid here… much more so.

At this point, it’s almost 9pm, and I’m exhausted after a long day and only a few hours sleep… after people watching for a while, and watching a crazy fountain, I headed “home” and found the internet. It lives in the basement of this building I’m staying in – I love it!

Next time, I’ll bring my camera cord down here and will upload pictures. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll do it in the morning tomorrow!!

Chicago is fun, and quite nice. It’s very lush and green – like I said, I’m impressed with the usage of green spaces. In Millenium Park there are lots of gardens with an abundance of flowers – they almost look “messy” – I like them!!