After leaving our campsite in Howe, Indiana and having breakfast at the one local restaurant, we hit the road for South Bend, which was about an hour away. We arrived mid-morning and immediately lost our way, but after a quick recovery and some friendly student help we quickly found the reason we’d stopped at Notre Dame: touchdown Jesus! Although Joe was expecting a statue, he was still quite impressive to see in person.
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| Annnnd it's good!!! |
About 20 minutes after we arrived in South Bend we were back on the road, headed to Chicago, where we are staying with Meredith and Jonathan, Joe’s sister and brother-in-law.
We got into town around 12 o’clock Chicago time and the first thing we found was the famous Mr. Beef sandwich shop right around the block from where we were staying. Naturally we stopped and got a couple Italian Beef Sandwiches, which were delicious. Then we headed right next door to the Green Door Tavern (established 1921) for a few drinks while we waited for Jonathan to get out of work. Jonathan arrived after not too long and after a while we decided to get a tour of the genuine prohibition era speakeasy that was in the basement of the Tavern—this was very cool.
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| The somewhat windy city. |
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| Jay Leno's favorite Chicago spot. |
We hung out for a bit until Meredith arrived and then headed back to the apartment to get situated and ready for dinner. Although we’d already settled on Chicago style deep-dish for dinner, it took some debate before it was decided that we’d go to Pizzeria Due, the second pizzeria opened by the owner of Pizzeria Uno before Uno went national. The deep-dish here was incredible and unlike any pizza we’d ever had before. But, before we start getting questions, as Meredith said, “you can’t even compare NY pizza with Chicago pizza” because they’re so different.
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| New meaning for the term "pizza pie" |
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| Not one, but.... |
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| Buddy Guy and his signature raspy voice. |
After our delicious dinner we decided to see Chicago, and M + J suggested Buddy Guy’s Legends Blues Club, which we were very excited to see. After a short trip on the EL we arrive at Buddy Guy’s and caught about 2.5 hours of a set by Eric “Guitar” Davis and the Troublemakers. Eric could play a mean blues guitar and he had a great voice with a solid backing band, but the highlight of the evening was when Buddy Guy himself went on stage with them and sang 2 or 3 songs for us. He was awesome. Very awesome.
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| Meet the Metzls. |
We'd like to say thank you to our hosts for an excellent first day and night in Chicago, and for what is clearly going to be an excellent trip. More Chicago to explore right now. We will update again later.
It's a about time you guy's added a post.... was about to send out a search party! lol
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