Night on the Town

It wasn't quite Chicago, but it was a heck of a lot of fun! My roommates and I left for the train a bit before 4pm, (and had to run at the end to make the 4:17) enjoyed a free ride (sometimes they give active duty members free rides), enjoyed a large, orange, setting sun over the horizon of housetops and bare, spindly, winter trees under a rich blue sunset sky. We got off at the Davis St. exit in Evanston, 16 stops down the line from Great Lakes, only 5 away from downtown Chicago.

I had drawn a map on scrap paper from Google Maps, and I directed our party of four down the street to a Barnes & Noble, where we spent the good bit of an hour poking around. Got myself a hot chocolate from Starbucks inside, a reading light for dorm life in San Diego, a couple cute little puzzles for down time and a historical picture book of the Naval Station here.

We took off in plenty of time to join our other roommate & friends at a fancy seafood & steakhouse place a few blocks away. I wore my fuzzy red sweater with my jeans & peacoat in order to look nice and fit in a little more. Glad I brought it here! But I might be shipping it home. :)

What food! I had a grilled chicken sandwich with guacamole under the melted Swiss & cheddar... fantastic! And I replaced my potatoes with fresh asparagus and added a lobster bisque... it was one of those dinners to remember! A good way to celebrate my graduating and moving on for sure. The main purpose of the evening for many of the others though was to head directly from there to a tattoo parlor... I thought I'd enjoy taking in a movie instead. I had just enough time after getting my check to briskly walk back to the big theater across the street from the train station and sit down as the trailers started rolling at 8:10pm. A couple of them looked interesting... including a new adaptation of Jane Eyre... which gives me more motivation to read the book. (I've recently seen the '40's version and had Meg read me the Eyre Affair on our trip.)

I took in "The King's Speech", and I enjoyed it very much. It was packed, but there was a single seat left in the very middle in the 3rd row up on the top section. Not used to seeing popular movies! They over-did some aspects I think, like Churchill knowing about the impending war when all others didn't. Also Prince Edward's relationship with the American woman portrayed him as party boy, probably a little more than was necessary. But otherwise I thought it incredibly well done... I felt like I was in '30's England. Loved seeing WWII newsreels on the big screen too! Wow! The basis for the film was Prince Albert's speech impediment... and how the radio broadcasts that the royalty had to make was forever changing what it was to be a monarch.

After the film I called my roommates and joined up with one who was coming back "early" on the 11pm train. They had had to go further towards Chicago to go to this place and had missed the one train... so they had only been at the parlor for about a half-hour when I got out from the film! Goodness! We met up just fine and got back just fine and went straight to bed. :)

Jp