An unplanned trip to Chicago
May. 25th, 2015 01:08 amSo this past weekend I ended up taking an unplanned trip to Chicago. The occasion for this was that Nadja posted on Facebook that Shuo was going to be in Chicago for the weekend and, well, I realized that I had little reason not to.
I mean, it's a funny thing -- I hadn't seen Shuo since before she disappeared 8 years ago. Of course, at this point she reappeared... well I don't know how long ago it was but it's been years, is the point. So why had I never gone to see her before? Well, basically, travel is annoying. It's not something I do often. And I mean yeah I guess strictly speaking I could have made time but it's so easy to forget, you know, when you're just constantly addressing whatever the most urgent task you have to do is. But hey -- here I am in Ann Arbor, nothing's particularly urgent at the moment, why not take an unplanned trip to Chicago?
So I did! I stayed with Colin and Aviva. Since I last saw them they've gotten a dog, named Gately. Gately is, um, extremely dog. He jumps on everyone and licks their faces and runs after thrown objects and chews on things and rolls over and lets you pet him (and then starts play-biting you) and eats anything that gets dropped and climbs on the furniture and plays with the cat (Prince Myshkin) and... I don't know, he's like some sort of dog archetype. He is maybe too much dog. I don't want a dog licking my face quite that much.
Friday night ended up kind of turning into a big Tufts House reunion, actually. You see, Colin and Aviva already had invited over Girl Alex and Antonia and Matt Woolf (not actually Tufts but kind of in that circle) for their weekly Shabbat dinner (and also Jan, their upstairs neighbor, who once also had a cat named Prince Myshkin). When Nadja and Shuo tried to coordinate us getting together, Colin suggested they just come over here as well. And then coincidentally it turned out that Grant was visiting his parents out in the Chicago suburbs and could get here in about an hour, and we got him to show up too. We took a big picture and sent it to Kate Harney, who reportedly replied "Whoa. That is a lot of Tufts." Jim unfortunately could not make it that night though Shuo and Nadja and I met up with him the next day.
We did not get a chance to play 64 Smash, nor did I get a chance to play Twilight Struggle against Colin (I didn't actually bring it, I would have had to bring a suitcase), but Shuo and Nadja and Colin and I did play Wiz-War (the Fantasy Flight reprinting, not the original). It was fun but kind of disappointing? I don't know, I expected more from it. I was wondering how it compares to the original but it's actually rated higher on BGG. Hm. It seems like the sort of game that might need the expansions.
(Also, Shuo tells me she still has that letter I sent her while she was disappeared because somehow I managed to get ahold of her physical address and I figured, why not, I can try to contact her that way. She never responded at the time, but now I learn it worked! :D )
I could probably go on about a whole bunch of things, but instead, two things about transport:
1. Man, the payment machines on the Chicago subway system are unfriendly to people who don't live there. I thought the New York ones were bad, but the Chicago ones are substantially worse. I mean, they don't give change!
2. Here's an unexpected delay for you: The Megabus I took back to Ann Arbor got pulled over by the police.
Anyway, I'm stopping here.
-Harry
I mean, it's a funny thing -- I hadn't seen Shuo since before she disappeared 8 years ago. Of course, at this point she reappeared... well I don't know how long ago it was but it's been years, is the point. So why had I never gone to see her before? Well, basically, travel is annoying. It's not something I do often. And I mean yeah I guess strictly speaking I could have made time but it's so easy to forget, you know, when you're just constantly addressing whatever the most urgent task you have to do is. But hey -- here I am in Ann Arbor, nothing's particularly urgent at the moment, why not take an unplanned trip to Chicago?
So I did! I stayed with Colin and Aviva. Since I last saw them they've gotten a dog, named Gately. Gately is, um, extremely dog. He jumps on everyone and licks their faces and runs after thrown objects and chews on things and rolls over and lets you pet him (and then starts play-biting you) and eats anything that gets dropped and climbs on the furniture and plays with the cat (Prince Myshkin) and... I don't know, he's like some sort of dog archetype. He is maybe too much dog. I don't want a dog licking my face quite that much.
Friday night ended up kind of turning into a big Tufts House reunion, actually. You see, Colin and Aviva already had invited over Girl Alex and Antonia and Matt Woolf (not actually Tufts but kind of in that circle) for their weekly Shabbat dinner (and also Jan, their upstairs neighbor, who once also had a cat named Prince Myshkin). When Nadja and Shuo tried to coordinate us getting together, Colin suggested they just come over here as well. And then coincidentally it turned out that Grant was visiting his parents out in the Chicago suburbs and could get here in about an hour, and we got him to show up too. We took a big picture and sent it to Kate Harney, who reportedly replied "Whoa. That is a lot of Tufts." Jim unfortunately could not make it that night though Shuo and Nadja and I met up with him the next day.
We did not get a chance to play 64 Smash, nor did I get a chance to play Twilight Struggle against Colin (I didn't actually bring it, I would have had to bring a suitcase), but Shuo and Nadja and Colin and I did play Wiz-War (the Fantasy Flight reprinting, not the original). It was fun but kind of disappointing? I don't know, I expected more from it. I was wondering how it compares to the original but it's actually rated higher on BGG. Hm. It seems like the sort of game that might need the expansions.
(Also, Shuo tells me she still has that letter I sent her while she was disappeared because somehow I managed to get ahold of her physical address and I figured, why not, I can try to contact her that way. She never responded at the time, but now I learn it worked! :D )
I could probably go on about a whole bunch of things, but instead, two things about transport:
1. Man, the payment machines on the Chicago subway system are unfriendly to people who don't live there. I thought the New York ones were bad, but the Chicago ones are substantially worse. I mean, they don't give change!
2. Here's an unexpected delay for you: The Megabus I took back to Ann Arbor got pulled over by the police.
Anyway, I'm stopping here.
-Harry
