Chicago Tribune Visit

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The view from Andrew's appartment in Hyde Park.

I took a light excursion to attend a photo seminar being held at the Tribune Towers in downtown Chicago this past weekend. I used my floating holiday for January and took off early on Friday morning and picked up my former college roomate, Andrew in front of his highrise workplace on Randolph and Wabash in DT? I only got the finger once, and it was my first time driving in Chicago! Honestly though, I would want to insult my car too. Covered in Iowa mud and rusted from the inside out. Not to mention the out of place Minnesota plates. The first night, I met Schotzie, the cat, and I really don't remember the rest. Kidding. I recovered quickly from this sometime after noon on Saturday, and continued my adventure with a bike ride to DT from Andrew's in Hyde Park. Which is about a 4 mile ride. I love riding in traffic. Stopping to chain up my bike in front of a too facy restaurant was a little unnerving, but the food, wine, and cheesecake was unbelivable! Italian Village? I don't even know if this is a legitamate Chicago eatery or some chain restaurant but everyone serving me was funny and very, very Italian. After I finished my mushrooms and cheese ravioli, I headed back out on my bike, but found that my legs could only get me as far as Wicker park. I decided to take the L (should have been taking the metro, which I never found) back to Andrew's. Whoops, wrong stop, ended up in a terrible South Chicago neigborhood where Andrew advised me via telephone to, "Ride East as quickly as possible! Don't stop till you hit the shore!". I escaped unharmed and crashed hard in Andrew's apartment. Sunday moring was the Tribune seminar. The beautiful gothic building was bold and a little intimidating, but the staff at the Trib were super friendly and the man pictured first in this post, Alex Garcia, who is the photog who's blog I follow and is the reason I ended up in Chicago in the first place, sat at our table! So I had the opportunity to pick his brain for the next four hours as some of the best photogs and multimedia experts in the world told us all their little trick and tips and hopes and dreams for photojournalism. After all the goodbyes were exchanged, I reluctantly left this wonderfully beautiful building, and I walked, slowly, accross the river and back to reality.