Work hard, play easy

After a pretty long and intense week, I finally got to duck out Friday to pick up Sara at the airport. Checked into the W City Center, which was a pretty decent hotel, although it turns out it was the lesser of the Chicago W's due to it's location. Ah well, who knew you could go wrong with city center. Then it was off to Sushi Samba for dinner thanks to some awesome pre-planning she did. Food was ok, but we had this sake called Hakujura or something that was really awesome. It was like champagne but sake tasting - and of course cost like it too. After dinner we had a nice romantic stroll through the city back to the hotel. Felt like an old couple. :)

Spent Saturday wandering around the city - Millennium Park, Magnificent Mile - and just by chance it also happened to be the Bite of Chicago. We tried a few things but as with all Bites, I ended up being disappointed - somehow eating just a small portion of overpriced food from desperate vendors is not very satisfying. Of course I'll keep going just so I'll have something to complain about. :)

That night we went to a totally awesome restaurant. Le Lan. Beef carparccio, crazy good scallops, lean duck breast... damn man... just kicked ass. Well done Le Lan.

We then went up to the top of the John Hancock Tower for dessert and drinks. Although service was crap and there was a long line, the view was spectacular. Well worth the trip. Too bad we missed the fireworks by 15 mins. Argh.

Lazy Sunday. Got stuck in pig fat for 2 hours and when you don't realize why traffic comes to a stop in a new city, you feel pretty bitter about the city government. Turns out they were trying their best. Ah well, best to give people the benefit of the doubt. Well at least we still made Live Free or Die Hard



THE MOVIE WAS AWESOME! Ok - seems like a lot of awesomes on the trip, but seriously, it was cool. Go see it. Watching the trailer just made me want to see it again. Damn.

Checked into the Westin and then went to eat at Pete Miller's. More awesome. Clearly you can never go wrong with bacon wrapped scallops, but their prime rib and fillet mignon was great too. Nice.

At night we snuggled up in bed and watched the Adam Brody movie In the Land of Women. The movie was kind of whatever but I did like the look of the daugther. She had the whole punk thing going on. Maybe it's cuz I've been listening the new Avirl CD... it's really fun and it's great to shout in the car when your going nuts at work.

What a great weekend. And the best part? Company picked up her plane ticket, weekend hotel, and dinner one night. You wonder how they keep suckers like me working.