...But sometimes it's literally rainbows and butterflies.
I spent the day today exploring the city with my friend Chloe. A fun thing about Chicago museums is that most of them have free days. They're exclusive to Illinois residents, but you don't have to have an Illinois ID to participate. All you have to do is give a zip code, so the Oak Park zip code works just fine. This morning Chloe sent me a list of some places she really likes around the city that were free and we decided to go to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Lincoln Park Zoo. They were close enough together to do both.
In the early afternoon, Chloe biked over to her aunt's house where I'm staying. Then we walked to the green line together. We talked through some of the things that had been bothering me last night, and Chloe gave me a couple stories about weird encounters she's had on public transportation, and a few tips on how to make it feel less sketchy. It felt the least sketchy it's ever felt getting on the train with someone else instead of by myself.
We got off the green line somewhere down town and connected to a bus to get closer to the museum and zoo. This is how I learned that busses, unless they're in a super well-trafficked area, are generally unreliable. Luckily the line that goes where we were going is pretty often used, so we didn't have to wait too long to get on the bus. We sat right behind where one half of the bus connects to the other half. Chloe made an offhand joke that we could sit in the swivel, but if the bus split in half we would just be left behind instead of thrown. Not long after, a group of four people playing Pokemon Go! sat in that section, and all I could think about was what would happen to them if the bus split in half. Chloe and I laughed about it after they got off.
The nature museum was great. We spent a fair amount of time looking at the taxidermy. Chloe's aunt told me a story before we left about a very young Chloe wandering through the museum talking about what an amazing job the taxidermists did. Adult Chloe is still a fan, and is looking forward to the taxidermy class the museum will have in the near future. Their most impressive (to me at least) taxidermy is a towering eight-foot-tall polar bear.
My favorite part was the butterfly room. As soon as we walked in, three or four Blue Morpho butterflies flew by. Chloe and I walked to a bench in the middle of the room and sat there for a long time, watching various butterflies and moths come and go. There was an identification chart, and we picked out Malachite butterflies and the hilariously named Common Mormon butterfly. After a while we got up and walked to where a few birds lived in the room as well. While we were over there, I saw a butterfly struggling on the ground, missing part of its wing. I managed to coax the butterfly into climbing on my finger so I could bring it over to a flower, where it happily latched on and drank.
We wandered around for a while after that and headed up to the bird walk. Unfortunately while we were on the bird walk, the building called a fire drill and we had to leave. This may have been a blessing in disguise, because we realized it was about time to leave if we also wanted to see the zoo. Lincoln Park Zoo is amazing, and we only had time to see maybe half of it today. The half we saw included a huge bird exhibit, seals, a bird room, penguins, and giraffes. I don't think I'd ever seen a giraffe in person before. They don't look like they should be real animals.
By the time the zoo was closing, Chloe and I were feeling pretty hungry anyway, and we headed over to Boystown, a neighborhood in Chicago that literally got that name for being so gay. The first thing we did was stop at a Japanese restaurant for ramen. It was really good, and the bowls were at least the size of my face. After that, we decided we wanted to get a drink at a nearby bar. When I looked up bars on my phone, literally every bar within walking distance was labeled as a gay bar.
Chloe and I settled on a place called The Closet, due to a combination of the hilarious name and the fact that it was rated only one dollar sign on the maps app. It was both our first times going to a gay bar, so we decided to take a picture outside of it. A woman standing outside having a cigarette offered to take it for us so we could both be in it. When she was done, a man came out and told her to stop hitting on us and let us come into the bar. The man was James, an older straight man who was there with his wife. James, surprisingly, is a regular. The woman was a lesbian named Liz with an incredible talent for darts.
Everything about the bar made it very obvious it was a gay bar, from the pride flags hanging in the window to the signs about being careful who you hate, because it might be someone you love. Chloe and I sat down at the bar and ordered Moscow Mules. When he realized it was our first time in, James paid for the first round. Through that first drink, Chloe and I mainly focused on the buzz of being in a gay bar. We had only meant to have one drink, but we decided to have a second since we hadn't actually had to pay for the first. This time we asked the bartender, Sue, what she would recommend. She gave me this delicious drink with coconut rum, cranberry juice, and lime. Our second round of drinks came with a side of advice about drinking from Sue, who had been bartending for something like 44 years if I remember right.
Through the second round we settled in, having long conversations with each other but also being social with the other patrons. James bought us one more round, bringing our drink total up to three and leaving us both owing only about five dollars. When we were finishing up our third drinks, Liz asked us if we wanted to head over to another place called Roscoes, and Chloe and I agreed. Theoretically we were walking to this next bar (even one of the crosswalks was made of rainbow brick!), but another club I never managed to get the name of was having an anniversary party with ridiculously discounted drinks. Chloe and I followed Liz in there. It was super crowded and loud and didn't really end up being our thing tonight, but we met a lot of really friendly people in a short amount of time.
Chloe and I decided to leave the club and head home, because returning to the suburbs is always a little bit of a trip. Still, we left grinning. Boystown was amazing, and The Closet was the perfect introduction to gay spaces like this. I don't think I could come up with a more warm or welcoming environment. I can't wait to go back, and I'm so glad I came to the city.
I spent the day today exploring the city with my friend Chloe. A fun thing about Chicago museums is that most of them have free days. They're exclusive to Illinois residents, but you don't have to have an Illinois ID to participate. All you have to do is give a zip code, so the Oak Park zip code works just fine. This morning Chloe sent me a list of some places she really likes around the city that were free and we decided to go to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Lincoln Park Zoo. They were close enough together to do both.
In the early afternoon, Chloe biked over to her aunt's house where I'm staying. Then we walked to the green line together. We talked through some of the things that had been bothering me last night, and Chloe gave me a couple stories about weird encounters she's had on public transportation, and a few tips on how to make it feel less sketchy. It felt the least sketchy it's ever felt getting on the train with someone else instead of by myself.
We got off the green line somewhere down town and connected to a bus to get closer to the museum and zoo. This is how I learned that busses, unless they're in a super well-trafficked area, are generally unreliable. Luckily the line that goes where we were going is pretty often used, so we didn't have to wait too long to get on the bus. We sat right behind where one half of the bus connects to the other half. Chloe made an offhand joke that we could sit in the swivel, but if the bus split in half we would just be left behind instead of thrown. Not long after, a group of four people playing Pokemon Go! sat in that section, and all I could think about was what would happen to them if the bus split in half. Chloe and I laughed about it after they got off.
The nature museum was great. We spent a fair amount of time looking at the taxidermy. Chloe's aunt told me a story before we left about a very young Chloe wandering through the museum talking about what an amazing job the taxidermists did. Adult Chloe is still a fan, and is looking forward to the taxidermy class the museum will have in the near future. Their most impressive (to me at least) taxidermy is a towering eight-foot-tall polar bear.
My favorite part was the butterfly room. As soon as we walked in, three or four Blue Morpho butterflies flew by. Chloe and I walked to a bench in the middle of the room and sat there for a long time, watching various butterflies and moths come and go. There was an identification chart, and we picked out Malachite butterflies and the hilariously named Common Mormon butterfly. After a while we got up and walked to where a few birds lived in the room as well. While we were over there, I saw a butterfly struggling on the ground, missing part of its wing. I managed to coax the butterfly into climbing on my finger so I could bring it over to a flower, where it happily latched on and drank.
We wandered around for a while after that and headed up to the bird walk. Unfortunately while we were on the bird walk, the building called a fire drill and we had to leave. This may have been a blessing in disguise, because we realized it was about time to leave if we also wanted to see the zoo. Lincoln Park Zoo is amazing, and we only had time to see maybe half of it today. The half we saw included a huge bird exhibit, seals, a bird room, penguins, and giraffes. I don't think I'd ever seen a giraffe in person before. They don't look like they should be real animals.
By the time the zoo was closing, Chloe and I were feeling pretty hungry anyway, and we headed over to Boystown, a neighborhood in Chicago that literally got that name for being so gay. The first thing we did was stop at a Japanese restaurant for ramen. It was really good, and the bowls were at least the size of my face. After that, we decided we wanted to get a drink at a nearby bar. When I looked up bars on my phone, literally every bar within walking distance was labeled as a gay bar.
Chloe and I settled on a place called The Closet, due to a combination of the hilarious name and the fact that it was rated only one dollar sign on the maps app. It was both our first times going to a gay bar, so we decided to take a picture outside of it. A woman standing outside having a cigarette offered to take it for us so we could both be in it. When she was done, a man came out and told her to stop hitting on us and let us come into the bar. The man was James, an older straight man who was there with his wife. James, surprisingly, is a regular. The woman was a lesbian named Liz with an incredible talent for darts.
Everything about the bar made it very obvious it was a gay bar, from the pride flags hanging in the window to the signs about being careful who you hate, because it might be someone you love. Chloe and I sat down at the bar and ordered Moscow Mules. When he realized it was our first time in, James paid for the first round. Through that first drink, Chloe and I mainly focused on the buzz of being in a gay bar. We had only meant to have one drink, but we decided to have a second since we hadn't actually had to pay for the first. This time we asked the bartender, Sue, what she would recommend. She gave me this delicious drink with coconut rum, cranberry juice, and lime. Our second round of drinks came with a side of advice about drinking from Sue, who had been bartending for something like 44 years if I remember right.
Through the second round we settled in, having long conversations with each other but also being social with the other patrons. James bought us one more round, bringing our drink total up to three and leaving us both owing only about five dollars. When we were finishing up our third drinks, Liz asked us if we wanted to head over to another place called Roscoes, and Chloe and I agreed. Theoretically we were walking to this next bar (even one of the crosswalks was made of rainbow brick!), but another club I never managed to get the name of was having an anniversary party with ridiculously discounted drinks. Chloe and I followed Liz in there. It was super crowded and loud and didn't really end up being our thing tonight, but we met a lot of really friendly people in a short amount of time.
Chloe and I decided to leave the club and head home, because returning to the suburbs is always a little bit of a trip. Still, we left grinning. Boystown was amazing, and The Closet was the perfect introduction to gay spaces like this. I don't think I could come up with a more warm or welcoming environment. I can't wait to go back, and I'm so glad I came to the city.
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