Chicago (Day 2)

 In my haze yesterday I neglected to book a hotel for the entirety of my isolation period. Mostly this was because by brain was so non functioning that it didn’t occur to me that I was going to need more than a day to heal. Of course, the place I booked was full up for the rest of the week so it’s off to Oak Grove where my new room overlooks Illinois Route 50 and the usual sprawl of parking lots that grace this nation’s self identified rural spaces.

I took America’s favorite rolling stock museum (Metra) to the local train station which is blissfully close to my hotel. This is the first time I’ve been in a gallery car since Caltrain gave all of theirs to the city of Lima… For free… and the people felt ripped off.

The meds are kicking in and I’m feeling I picked pretty good. There’s a shocking amount in walking distance and because the pedestrian environment is unpleasant here I’m not in danger of getting anyone else sick if I need to grab something.

Today was a movie day. Hilights include Crime Story which is an old school Jackie Chan Cantonese cop flick. Unfortunately they only had a dub here which was pretty brutal to watch. Knowing what Jackie sounds like in English and hearing someone else’s voice come out of his mouth was pretty bad. The movie was great, all the elegance and grace of Hong Kong’s finest and apparently based on a true story. Another good one was The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a heist movie about a gang of baddies lead by Robert Shaw who hijack a NYC subway train and hold the passengers for ransom. The look of the movie is solid, the MTA actually let them shoot on the subway for it. Also Bob plays a fantastic bad guy.