YEY!  So let’s pick up where we left off…

After my fantastic La Martina  bag purchase, I was on top of the vintage world.  The only thing that could make me happier was, of course, an ice cold beer.  Fortunately, it was about 23 degrees, sunny, and BEEee-autiful in Wicker Park, so Hop-Bone and I set off to find a patio.  One really weird thing we noticed about Chicago was that patios were few and far between.  I mean, if this was a 23 degree day in Toronto, there would be people falling all over themselves to sit on a patio and be seen somewhere.

After about 15-20 minutes of searching, we stumbled upon a huge, amazing patio at Big Star.  I would say this was by far the “coolest” (well… coolest by Toronto standards… which I’ll talk more about tomorrow) bar/restaurant we went to the whole trip.

Big Star is a re-purposed garage a la Parts and Labour that is wedged directly under an L-Train line in Wicker Park.  They, of course, have the stylized garage door that rolls up to provide a huge virtually indoor-outdoor bar that seemed to house a LOT of people.  They serve beer and Mexican food.  Natalie’s dream bar.  We ordered some chips and guacamole, and sifted through the beer list…

Now, I guess I didn’t realized how “Canadian” I am, but apparently ALL the beer I drink is Canadian.  The only beers that I recognized were Schlitz and Blatz.  Everything else was new to me.  In a situation like this, I always recommend asking the server what they drink – she recommended a great beer on tap that went down smooth as silk.  So, we sat in the sun – not too hot, not too cold… surrounded by our fantastic vintage finds and a bunch of hot bearded-tattooed-black-t-shirted men, listening to the Patsy Cline album that they were BLARING out of the speakers (Patsy Cline sounds so awesome when it’s loud…), hearing the deafening roar of the L-Train careening by… and enjoyed ice cold beers… mmmmm… I have a big boner for you, Big Star.

 

 

Speaking of boners… look at the size of that hot-dong:

One quick thing to point out if you are me and you are drinking beer in Chicago.  They were only serving the draft beer in 12 ounce glasses.  Pints are 20 ounce glasses.  I don’t know if you know Natalie, but she can pack away a LOT of beer.  Like, a lot.  Like, “Andre-the-Giant” a lot.  So, 12 ounces of beer is like 4 sips for me… and I felt like a huge alcoholic ordering beer after beer after beer in the super small shot-glass-size pints they were serving.  Whatever.  It was delicious.

After about 16 mini pints of beer, we stumbled out of our seats, fully intending to wander back to the hotel and chill before busting out that night.  We stopped at The Worm Hole for a coffee and a washroom break (16 mini pints can do that to ya…).  They had a whole bunch of 1980s movie posters all over the walls, AND a full model of the Delorean from Back to the Future:

 

So – we’re back at the hotel lobby… it’s about 4:00 or so (we haven’t even checked in yet, we just chucked our stuff in the hotel luggage room at 7:00 am).  The front desk person asks Hops for some ID to get the room purchase all in order… and… she realizes that she lost her wallet.

Yes.  After about 7 hours of shopping all over downtown Chicago.

This is after she also forgot her designer Betsey Johnson sunglasses at that brunch place earlier this morning at Orange, and we had to walk an additional 20 minutes or so to go back and grab them.

Oh Hop-Bone.  Toronto Pam is so responsible.  Chicago Pam is an irresponsible disaster.  But a hilarious one, nonetheless.  SO, we call the Worm Hole, and some guy found her wallet on the back of the toilet in the shitter.  Classy lassy, that Hop-Bone. 

So – baaaack in the cab to bust it back down to the Worm Hole to grab her wallet.  We speculate that someone has stolen all of her IDs and is using them to rent carpet shampooers all over downtown Chicago.  Here is Pam all upset about her wallet:

Juuust kidding.  She’s laughing.

So of course, because everyone in Chicago is so nice, we get there, she gets her wallet back, and everything (including $40.00 cash) is still completely intact:

 

Them peeps at The Worm Hole were wonderful.  We asked their advice on where to go and rock out with our cocks out that night, and they wrote out a sheet with a whole bunch of options. 

Earlier that day, Pam and I pretended that we were spontaneous gals and thought “HEeeey!  Wouldn’t we be so spontaneous if we got a tattoo while we’re here?”.  Well, at the Worm Hole, we noticed that there was a tattoo parlour about two storefronts down… sooooo…

We popped in and got’er done!  We decided to get anchors on our fingers… yeah… cheese.  Symbolic of how ‘we’re each others anchors’ and to ‘not let ourselves get carried away’… sigh.  Cheese.  I know.  The guy at the front had something really similar to what we were looking for. 

At first, I was a bit nervous.  The last tattoo I got was about 11 years ago – I remember it not hurting at all, but memory can get fuzzy in old age…

 

But then, I saw that my Tattoo Artist, Joey, had a “Certificate of Mexellence”.  So then, I felt pretty confident in his skills:

Here we go!

 

 

Oh Joey – you’re awesome.

Then, it was Hop-Bone’s turn.  Her guy reminded me of Henry Rollins… with glasses and a backwards baseball cap.

 

 

Sistersss are doin’ it for themselves:

Anyhoo – the guys at Metamorph were awesome.

Sigh!  By now, the sun had gone down, and Hops and I were starting to itch for some nighttime debauchery… which will be recounted tomorrow. 

What will you hear about?  I mount some stranger’s motorcycle, Pam meets a horny artist, we re-enact the whole plot of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and we go on a 5 a.m. hunt for flowers.  Stay tuned!