Chicago

My girlfriend C and I were staying for two weeks in Chicago, a city none of us had visited before, and had a quite busy schedule. She had made all sorts of plans, and was always in charge of the day’s itinerary after carefully consulting the Timeout Chicago guide. Everything was going great.

The only plan I had organized was a half-baked club outing, for which –among other reasons, one of them being a lovely little bar called Matchbox- C had previously forged an ID. It was half-baked because I did not really know the name of this place or what kind of music they would play, or if we would even like it at all.

Days went by and I couldn’t seem to find the name of the place, so I could not google it, get the address and also read some review that would let us know if we would actually enjoy going there.

C and I were staying in a two-bedroom graduate student apartment near the University of Chicago that was lent to me by a former girlfriend. (Yes, I know, very civilized.) Two nights before her scheduled departure –C was leaving for Canada one day before I flew back to New York, where we would meet a week later- I finally came up with the name of the place. Sonotech was quite far from our apartment.

We took the 173 bus we always took to the loop and then the blue subway line. We got off at the Chicago stop and walked in the wrong direction for a little while. (In this trip she noticed I could read street names from a longer distance than she did and decided to get her eyes checked. Now she wears lenses and I must say she looks pretty damn good.)

Our side of the street was a little dark ahead, so when we got back to Milwaukee I thought it would be better to walk on the other side. While we stood on the curb waiting for a light to change, still some five blocks from Sonotech, a taxi almost run us over. The passenger window opened and the driver yelled asking how to get to Bishop. C and I looked at each other in a little disbelief, since someone had asked us for the only street we actually knew how to find. (The place was on Chicago and Bishop.) “You have to turn around. It is that way,” I said pointing west.

One of the passengers asked if I was sure and I said yes. He insisted, but changed his question. “You see, we are trying to find a place called Sonotech.”