Boston English

When I first moved to Chicago, I knew there would be some adjustments. East Coast girl meets Midwest lifestyle-- it just sounds like a match made in Comedy Central heaven. At first I noticed that everyone was a lot nicer, not necessarily always in a rush and said pop when referring to soda. I also had the opportunity to order tater tots with every meal.

However, as I immersed myself deeper in the Midwest culture, I got a little more homesick and a lot prouder of where I’m from (never thought I'd say "I grew up in Worcester, MA" with so much love). It’s also one of the reasons I love my internship so much.

What does that have to do with anything, you may be thinking. Settle down you impatient Massholes (sorry Mom)! For the last two months I have been working around people who have grown up in or around the Chicagoland area and study me like a science experiment when I say a word they don’t recognize.

For example: on my third day, we had a meeting with HR to fill out paperwork. As we entered the office, I realized that I had left my passport on my bureau, and kept apologizing for doing so. It was all well and good, except the three people I was with (my boss, co-intern and HR representative) had no idea what I was talking about. I guess they didn't want to be rude and ask, but eventually had to in order to understand why I didn’t have the proper identification. I explained that my bureau was a dresser, you know, the place where you put clothes in draws (they made fun of that one, too).

Their wide eyes filled with laughter. Then they wanted to know more.

I went down the list: jimmies, frappe, bubbler…pause for 15 minutes as we die of laughter from the word bubbler. At this point, my boss (or “colleague” as she likes to be called) is pulling in opinions from other people in the office just to make sure she isn’t the only one unaware of these words.

Not a day goes by when she doesn’t ask me to say “very berry,” which I apparently pronounce in a funny way.

Yesterday, we were talking about bowling and I asked if there was candlepin bowling here or if it was just big balls.

Crickets.

I look up and my co-intern and boss are staring at me with disbelieving, confused eyes. I think they were initially entertained by my use of the phrase “big balls” but had absolutely no idea what candlepin was until I proved I indeed did not make it up (Wikipedia has had my back on several occasions, like frappe and bubbler).

I secretly love the attention I get for saying these different words and like even more that it makes me different from everyone else. Here, I am a unique individual who says “very berry” and drinks from a bubbler.

Although I never like to be the butt of a joke, I love when they tease me for my East Coast talk. I also know they secretly love the entertainment, too. Last week at work, the interns had to deliver presentations to the President/CEO and other staff. My boss told me I should mention some of the funny words and write them all down on a separate slide at the end of the PowerPoint presentation. I did, and it was a hit, eliciting a few laughs from the room.

I called that slide (shown above) “Boston English,” because, well, that’s what Wikipedia calls it. No really, it exists.

In order to prevent myself from picking up the hard ‘o’ sound Chicagoans make when they speak, I make it a point to say “wicked” as much as I can and embrace my “Boston English” vocabulary on a daily basis. I may or may not even experiment with dropping an ‘r’ or two once in a while, just for fun. I can’t lose my Eastern edge. I’m from Worcester, after all.

Una Bella Notte

My friend Bernie and I went to the Italian Festival in the Little Italy neighborhood last weekend. I had been waiting for the chance to celebrate my Italian heritage—and most importantly my love for Italian food—since I moved here.

After attending several festivals honoring other cultures like German and Chinese, I was ready to indulge in some carbohydrates courtesy of Italy. We walked around the festival grounds, browsing the options before narrowing down our choices to toasted ravioli, mini meatball sandwiches/sliders and for the main course, stuffed eggplant (which was unbelievable). We topped it off with handmade cannolis.

In addition to the elaborate food, there were three stages of entertainment, including a man singing on the Piazza DiMaggio. The Piazza is a beautiful plaza with fountains and a statue of Yankee (and Italian-American) legend Joe DiMaggio, dedicated to the Italian-American immigrants who flocked to the Taylor Street neighborhood—“Little Italy”—in the early 1900’s. It is located across from the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.

There were also several extreme Jersey Shore inspired guidos and guidettes crawling around. The vendors were not only stocked with Italian soccer gear (despite the Azzurri’s poor showing in the World Cup), but they also had shirts that said “Jersey Shore Guidette” and “Jersey Shore Fist Pump Team” written in the symbolic red-green-white colors. I chose this as the low point of the festival and would have lost my appetite had I not already stuffed my face—and stomach—with delicious food.

There was even a game area at the festival, but I decided to eat my money’s worth rather than risk it on the chance I might win an inflatable hammer or stuffed teddy bear. Oh yeah, and there was a Bocce court.

I even met a new friend… this Roman soldier. I honestly think he dressed up for fun and not because he had to as part of the festivities. Hey, his get-up sure beats a blow out, gold-plated jewelry and a fake spray tan!

Smoke and Mirrors

I can officially cross "fancy nightclub" and "fake celebrity encounter" off my Chicago bucket list.

Last Saturday night, my roommate Laura and I attended my friend’s birthday party at one of those fancy clubs often mentioned in Monday’s gossip columns when recapping the weekend’s star sightings. I’m not a club kind of girl, so I found it amusing—and myself a little out of my element—when I saw a red carpet rolled out for us to walk on as we entered the building. However, we were allowed in only after waiting an ample amount of time of course, simply to remind us we weren’t at your every day establishment (there was no other reason fro the wait as the place was nowhere near filled when we got inside). Luckily, I didn’t have to pay the $20 entrance fee because we were in our group and they waived the cover for “the ladies.”

The best part of the waiting-in-line experience was when the group of scantily dressed girls in front of us decided they had “like been waiting for like ever” and it was “like so stupid” and they started to walk away. I bet Laura the bouncers would try to stop them because they had sky-high heels and hem lines, and ever lower cut tops. As soon as the doorman noticed the mass exodus of skanks, he ran after them. I watched as he then lead them through the VIP entrance without collecting a cover charge from any of them.

I literally laughed out loud. While I have never been to L.A., I can imagine that this is what it might look like on your average Saturday night. Except the girls would never have left the line nor have been chased, as there would have been a queue of appropriately dressed females behind them.

After we made it past the Ivory Tower of bodyguards with tight black shirts and pretentious earpieces (I wonder if they even work), the inside wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before in a club with much less red tape.

While I would have preferred to spend my night sipping on a $5 beer while sitting on sticky bar stool, it’s not every day one gets beyond the velvet ropes of club heaven (rolls eyes) and I don’t get to hang out with this friend very often, so I was happy to be there. Even if it meant nursing an overpriced vodka and diet. I knew this would happen, so I planned—err, drank—ahead of time to accommodate my student budget.

Within an hour or so of being there, I started talking with a guy and we bonded over our dislike for this particular club and the obnoxious house music bumping in the basement level where we were hanging out. Eventually, he asked if Laura and I wanted to meet his friends. We agreed, as it would hopefully rescue us from the present situation. We followed him up to a VIP room where a group of guys were enjoying bottle service.

As we made our way through the introductions, one of the friends introduced another friend as “this is my boy, he plays for the Chicago Bears, he’s ____” (the identity of this Bears defenseman will remain nameless as to protect the innocent).

I looked at him and said “You are not ____.”

They all chimed in and tried to valiantly convince me—to no avail—that this was indeed ____. This guy looked a lot like ____ , only a lot smaller, and had I not known any better (which I’m assuming they pegged me as a girl who didn’t), I probably would have believed them. Never one to be caught as the butt of any joke, I held fast to my belief that this was not ____.

I asked to see his I.D., agreeing to believe him once I did.

“I don’t need one of those,” he said.

“Then how did you get into this club?” I asked.

“Man, you talk too much,” he said.

He then proceeded to ask me and Laura to leave their little VIP area. We did so with pleasure as we both got a free Grey Goose and cranberry out of it. He was probably mad I didn’t fall for his game. And now I have a story I can tell over and over again.

Once we were returned to the subterranean, I caught up with the guy who brought us to his friends’ VIP party in the first place. He asked why we left and I told him what happened. He felt bad for his rude friend (he later said he was more of an acquaintance than a friend), laughed once I did (assuring him I though the story was funny) and proceeded to tell me that the guy pretending to be one of Chicago’s favorite Bears players was a cop who got made fun of a lot in high school.

The sad part of the story is that I’m sure a lot of girls fall for that guy’s story: a man who looks a lot like ____, surrounded by bottle service in a VIP section of a popular celebrity hangout. However, once again my sports knowledge saved me and prevented me from falling victim to a celebrity look-a-like. Although looking back I wish I had played it better in order to get a second free drink out of it!

Seven Things I Miss About Summer

Everyone says that there is no place like Chicago in the summertime. Strangely, I've found myself the most homesick during these warmer months.

In order to make it through my tough spinning class this past weekend, I closed my eyes and pretended I was biking along the coast of Maine. Then it got me thinking: what else do I miss about the East Coast summer?

1. Walking along the Maine beaches, the sand sinking beneath your feet as the surf crashes against your ankles, immersing them in the cold, salty Atlantic water. You can wade through Lake Michigan, but you better check the water alerts for E.coli first.

2. Ice cream adventures to Scoop Deck and Meola's. Here, I can walk a couple blocks to Baskin Robbins, or over a mile to the closest-and pretty much only--homemade ice cream joint in the area. We have plenty of cupcakes but the homemade ice cream options are limited.

3. Worcester Tornadoes baseball games. Nothing beats a summer night baseball game, especially when it comes with cheap tickets, beer and fried dough. Though it's independent baseball, it tops the over-priced, underachieving Cubs.

4. Though Chicago has street festivals like Burgerfest and Ribfest, there's nothing quite like a family cookout--planned or impromptu. A hand-packed burger cooked to perfection by Dad on the grill paired with tasty macaroni salad whipped up by Mom in the kitchen is my favorite summer meal. I like my burgers with a side of chips, not a bump from behind by a sweaty festival-goer.

5. The smell of a campfire rather than the blaring sound of fire engine sirens.

6. Boston Beer Works blueberry and watermelon beer. Chicago brewed 312 doesn't quite compare to a Sam Summer from the tap and a fresh lemon wedge.

7. Mini golf outings. Haven't found the places or the competition/friends to experience this in Chicago yet.

The ocean and the lake are both blue, but they couldn't be more different to me. I guess I'll always be an East Coast girl at heart, especially when it comes to summer fun. A month from today I'll be back, but my mind is already there. When it comes to summer, there's just no place like home.

Transform-ing Chicago

As you may or may not have heard, Transformers 3 is currently filming in Chicago and will be for seven weeks. Shia LeBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Patrick Dempsey and that Victoria's Secret model chick who is replacing Megan Fox are all here and taking over the city streets.

Each week, the film shuts down a strip or area of downtown in order to film. While Chicago is expected to make $20 million off playing host, many people I know are already tired of the film's inconvenience of extra traffic, tourists, street closures and bus reroutes. To give you an idea: Michael Bay and company had a chunk of Michigan Ave closed from last Thursday at 8 p.m. through 5 a.m. this morning (Monday). This included the Michigan Ave Bridge, which was reportedly used in this weekend's dramatic explosion and helicopter scenes (my boss said she saw the bridge up with cars hanging from the edges).

While I didn't catch any of the action this weekend, I was able to see it on Friday, as they set up shop right where I work. I had a great view from the 43rd floor, and some coworkers and I spent most of the day peering out the window scoping the scene and taking turns passing a pair of binoculars (which weren't necessarily needed but they gave us a close up view of LeBeouf when we finally spotted him). At one point, they even filmed something in the Chicago River... as the crew members jumped into the water and swam around with equipment, I wondered if anyone told them that the water isn't exactly safe for swimming.

At the beginning of the month, the building manager sent an email warning people of the closures and the schedule of action. My favorite part of this email (and my dad's least as he now realizes that Optimus Prime and Voltron aren't real) was this:

Since the Transformers robots are all digital creations, you
won't be able to see them during filming

Duh.

During lunch on Friday, I took a walk over to the set in order to get a view of the wreckage, the man-made craters in the streets and perhaps even Optimus Prime (oops, forgot about the part that he wasn't real). I got some good pictures of the set and the smell of burning cars still lingers in my nose, but I didn't get close enough to see any of the actaul filming. So I returned to my 43rd floor perch where I could see them set the cars on fire and people running around.

Before my retreat, I did learn one fun tidbit from a security guard: the cars in the wreckage and in the scene aren't from a junkyard. Paramount buys them and then blows them up themselves. They then use the spare scrap metal for pile-ups like the ones you will see in the slide show below.

Enjoy! (I made it on a free website, so you have to click the X to get rid of the advertisement in order to see the captions).

Festival Season is Here

So, I haven't written in a while. Mostly because I've been busy adjusting to my full time internship and being lazy in this intense heat. Either this is a bad summer or it's just a lot more humid and hot in the Midwest than it is on the East Coast. Mother Nature is kicking my little box fan's ass.

Although I haven't posted anything, it does not mean I haven't been up to exploring and taking advantage of all that Chicago has to offer in the summer.

Sky High Visit

Fourth of July weekend came and went but ended with a blast... my brother came to visit! He was in Milwaukee with his college roommates over the holiday and took a bus down to Chicago to hang out with me for a few days after. We did touristy things like went to the top of the Willis Tower (Sears Tower) and had pizza, and took a boat tour. Even though I took the architecture tour in May when Christina came to visit me, it was so fun and different the second time around... guess there are just so many buildings and history in this city!

At the Willis, Sean and I stood on the glass ledge that juts out 4.5 feet from the 107th floor--when you look down, you are standing nearly a mile up over the city. And another fun fact... Sean timed the elevator ride and it takes 60 seconds to travel the 107 floors.

It was great to hang out with Sean and show him around. We even ducked into the original Billy Goat Tavern (inspiration for the SNL "Cheezeborger Cheezeborger" skit). And of course, I had to take him to get some s'mores pizza! I'm already planning out his next visit filled with all the things we didn't get to do this time.

Man Food and Music

One of the charming parts about Chicago summers is the fact that there are multiple street festivals every weekend. It is my goal to attend at least one a weekend, and I have been pretty good with it. In June, a couple friends and I hit up Ribfest. It was as deliciously awesome as it sounds.

Last Sunday, my friend Bernie and I went to Burgerfest in the Ravenswood neighborhood. There were seven different burger vendors from the neighborhood so we picked a few different ones and split them in order to get the full festival experience (the photo is of our favorite one from John's Place, it was delicious and voted the winning burger of the festival). Not only did we get to indulge in delicious burgers (and I may or may not have drank a pina colada out of a pineapple), but I got to see one of my favorite bands.. the Gin Blossoms!

The concert was going great until it started to pour rain. After a 15 minute rain delay, the rain stopped and the band came back on and played a few more songs. Until it started pouring again. This time, however, one of the guitarists got a little shock so they cancelled the rest of the show because it was unsafe and there was no end in sight to the rain. I heard all my favorites.. except "Hey Jealousy," which the crowd kept chanting at every song break. During the rain delay, people started singing the words in hopes the band would come back out and play it. Bernie and I splashed our way home, laughing all the way at the ridiculousness of the whole experience.

Chinatown Festival

Today, my roommates and I went to the Chinatown Summer Festival. Although it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be, it was still a nice way to spend the afternoon. And I'm pretty sure I sweat out all the calories of that Crab Rangoon and bubble tea I had (the fried delicacy brought back flashes of my Freshman 15 as they were the main culprit). I was expecting there to be tons of food and authentic Chinese items for sale. However, there were only a few stands with food and many of the little store set-ups looked like a Dollar Store threw up on them. Too bad I had already bought my sponges and plastic wrap at Target the day before.

(That's me channeling my inner Ninja Turtle and playing around with some nunchucks)

Despite the many strange stands, there were a few shining moments. The sole purchase I made was from one of the places with bamboo plants and bonsai trees. I was very excited to walk away with my new lucky bamboo tree. Here's to hoping it brings me some good luck! And perhaps many more adventures this summer!

The Time I Kissed the Stanley Cup

My fun-filled weekend continued on Sunday when I woke up early to attend the 41st Annual Chicago Pride Parade in Boystown. I went for a few reasons:

1) To experience one of Chicago’s biggest events (1.2 million turned out for the parade)

2) To experience a parade other than a sports championship rally (a la Celtics and Blackhawks)

3) To do some reporting for RedEye Wrigleyville, seeing it was one of the biggest weekends for our neighborhood blogs.

Going into the parade I planned to find out how the community--the gay community in particular--felt about having participation from both the Blackhawks and the Cubs this year. Blackhawks player (well, former player--he was traded last week) Brent Sopel was carrying the Stanley Cup at the parade (it's actually a really great story) and for the first time ever, the Cubs had a float in the parade.

The parade was fun to watch and the overall experience and atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive and beautiful. There is so much hate and violence in this world that it was very nice to see a million people coming together to show love and support for each other whether they were black, white, gay, straight, etc.

Although fun, the parade was very long. I left before it finished in order to shower and relax after a busy weekend. Upon returning home, I accomplished the shower part, which felt good on my slightly sunburned skin. However, I was right back out the door 30 minutes later when I found out that Brent Sopel and the Stanley Cup would be at a bar in Wrigleyville and like any good reporter covering her beat, I decided I needed to find out what was going on. And I've always wanted to see the Cup, my favorite sports trophy of all time.

When my roommate Laura and I got to the bar, we were asked to donate $10 which guaranteed us a chance to take a picture with the Cup (the money went to Sopel's charity). The Cup left at 5 p.m., we got our picture taken with it at 4:58. Just in time! After I snapped a photo with the Cup, I laid a big fat one on it. It was cold. And if I caught cooties from it, I wouldn't have even cared. I kissed the Stanley Cup. The only thing that would have made this better would be if it was in Boston and belonged to the Bruins.

After I stepped away from Stanley, the day got even better. After following around and asking--and in turn probably annoying--the event organizer, I was able to ask Sopel a few questions for a post on the RedEye Wrigleyville blog. They were both really nice and I was proud that my curiosity turned into a stellar scoop for the blog! And I got to kiss the Cup. Did I already mention that??

Here is the post I wrote about the event, including my interview with Sopel. I tweeted the story out the next day (aka sent it out on Twitter) and Sopel tweeted me back thanking me for it!

I'm not sure how July is ever going to compare with my extremely eventful and exciting June (meeting Evan Lysacek and kissing the Stanley Cup), but it's surely set the bar pretty high!