Chicago Parisian Reunion

I arrived in Chicago on Friday, December 14, at 2:30 pm. I had been up since 3:00 am p.s.t. and hadn't really slept much on the plane. As I reached Chicago I could feel butterflies get more and more intense in my stomach, as I didn't really know what to expect when I saw the girls. I came down the escalator towards the U.S. Airways baggage claim, and I hear my name being yelled from a ways away. I turned around and there standing in front of me were Meredith, Lauren, and Meghan. We all looked so different but there we all were starting to talk and things just all fell in to place. There was no need for me to be nervous, these are my best friends in the entire world!

That is how the Parisian Reunion started with my girls! So after I claimed by suitcase, after having chased like five others all over the baggage belt with Meredith, we set off to hit the road. I landed in Chicago smack in the middle of rush hour. So the four of us decided that we really couldn't stand the traffic unless we had some wine. We found a liquor store and Lauren, Meredith and I went in to find a twist off cap bottle of wine. We did not have a corkscrew, so we had to be cheap. What we thought was a bottle that was a twist off ended up not being a twist off! And we had already gotten on the expressway so there was no turning back to buy a corkscrew. Luckily Meghan had a tool kit in the back and we found tools to try to push the cork in to open it.

Lauren attempting to open the bottle with pliers

Lauren and Meredith trying to refrain from laughing. Of course Lauren is doing all the work.

Meredith just being Meredith . .

VICTORY! now we can drink our wine...

Meredith could not seem to stop spilling every time she took a sip.

Finally after two hours of bumper to bumper traffic we reached Meredith's place downtown. We started a little photo shoot and took pictures all around, as we talked in the living room and tried to catch up as best we could.

Lauren and I

Lauren and Meredith in front of the case of wine.

this was the case of wine that Meghan had bought to last the weekend

After hours of talking, and wine drinking, it was getting close to the hour of Leanna's arrival. We had been talking and speculating if Leanna was indeed engaged, since her website mentioned wedding type issues. She called us once she had arrived to the station and we made our way down. Barely after we had all given her kisses and hugs we demanded to see her left hand. Yes! Leanna is engaged! We have a wedding now to go to in Ohio, this July '08! She is marrying the man that she met when we were all out in Paris together. The last of the group that anyone had been expecting to meet the man of her dreams out there, and here we are two years later trying to help plan HER wedding to HER frenchman!




After Leanna had arrived we then all got dolled up to go out to dinner and spent the night on the town. Meredith had made reservations at a cute french bistro called Bistrot Margot. It was very befitting for the French theme. There we had such great classic french food, along with champagne to toast to us and to Leanna. (toasting to Leanna was more of the path that the weekend took, and we really did try to make it a bachelorette weekend after we got the news from her)

from left to right: Meredith, Meghan, Leanna, Lauren, me

That night, after we went to dinner and had indulged in too much food, we went to a bar named JBar. It was a classy lounge type. It really did remind me of being in a bar in Europe since there is still smoking permitted indoors. I am no longer used to dealing with the smell of smoke. So we all spent hours at the bar having drinks and mingling. Lauren and I, being the only two single ladies of the group, made our way to the dance floor. Meredith's boyfriend showed up for the going out along with a few of his friends. He is french as well so from this point on, most of the weekend was spoken in French. Actually, it was more like Franglais. At what I think may have been around 2:00 am we all left the bar and went to Meredith's boyfriend's apartment. He lives downtown on the 33rd floor of a building. It was the most phenomenal sight. It was a clear night, so we got to see the lights of Chicago, 180 degree view. We stayed up all night, drank more wine, and Meredith, her boyfriend Matthieu, and I cooked up some gyros for everyone to eat. We continued to plan Leanna's wedding and kept chatting away. As the hours passed we all decided we should get some sleep if we wanted to do anything the next day.

Matthieu posing in Meghan's boots, with the backdrop of the city of Chicago

We had blown up a huge air mattress in the living room, and had spent the night there. In the morning, I woke up of course with my head in a vice and my body aching, but as I looked out the window the next picture is what I saw. Chicago in a blizzard. Yes, a blizzard!

the view I woke up to

the view out of Matthieu's windows

standing outside on the balcony

the morning after a night out in Chicago, we mad a mess out of Matthieu's pad

Once we had all had at least 2 cups of coffee we all mustered up the courage to go outside. Mind you, we were all still in our clothes from the previous night out. I was still in a tiny little shirt dress and tights that Meredith had let me borrow. Ok, so I felt a little out of place when we went in to an Italian Cafe for lunch right after this...

Leanna, Lauren and Meghan (Lauren was definitely feeling the worst out of the bunch)

the snow was falling and the wind was blowing like crazy

Leanna standing in the snow

here I am completely numb enjoying the snow

We did lunch at an Italian cafe. We loaded up on carbs, eating lots of pizza, and bread and cheese, and a pitcher of Mimosa. After curing the hangovers, for the most part, we walked the few city blocks back to Meredith's place. Those few city blocks were quite interesting. Picture 5 girls acting delirious (and hung over) singing down the street, still in their clubbing clothes, on the side of the road in the middle of a blizzard. Whatever you are imagining, is how it was. And the entire weekend continued along the same line . . We reached Meredith's apartment and fought for the shower. We were all frozen through, and wanted to defrost and get into clean clothes. Meredith had the fantastic idea of going out for cocktails at the John Hancock Tower. So we all just put on layers and layers of regular day clothing to head back out. As everyone was getting ready I took some snapshots of the view outside Meredith's living room windows. It is approximately 3:00 pm now on Saturday.

the building to the left with the green and red lights is where we were headed. the bar is at the top on the 96th floor...

But before we headed out and people were still taking showers we opened up some more wine. Absolute insanity and silliness ensued as we had music blaring and dancing throughout the place.

Meredith and I were snapping and swaying to the beat of Michael Buble

Meredith refusing to put her wine down to go take a shower

Meredith and Leanna
(Leanna wanted to go outside with her beanie like this because it was so cold)

but she decided to go out like this
(and she was still cold too)

Leanna (the bride to be) and Lauren

Meredith wearing her beret next to Lauren

We finally had all gotten clothed and bundled up, and headed out. The snow was not dying down, nor was the wind. We three southern state girls were having an interesting experience.

Leanna (Tampa, Florida), Lauren (Birmingham, Alabama) and I

The walk to the Tower was absolutely gorgeous. I've never actually taken a walk in such a beautiful city, and in the middle of a blizzard no less.

Meghan and Leanna

Lauren, Leanna, Meredith and Megha

the streets of Chicago

a Christmas tree in front of the John Hancock tower

here I am taking a picture from the foot of the John Hancock Tower, the bar is somewhere up there I promise

Leanna and Meredith having a cocktail

We had ourselves a great cocktail, but unfortunately we were on the 96th floor in the middle of a cloud. Ther cloud did go away for about 2 minutes, just enough time to look out the window, and literally see all of Chicago at night. The left you could see Navy Pier and the ferris wheel and to the right and straight out were the lights and all the high rises. It was a beautiful sight. We finished out drinks and took the elevator back down (3 pops of the ears later) and were back out in the cold to go home, change and go out to dinner.

Meredith had made reservations for this second night at an Italian restaurant called Vivo. You entered and there was a lounge bar, then next door through a set of curtains was the restaurant. We were shown to our table that happened to be up a small staircase that led to a private room! It was the most perfect setting for our last night The host had excused the draft and the water that we would sometimes feel. It was then that we looked around and realized that we were sitting in an elevator shaft!!!

looking up from the table, you can see the old rails for the elevator, and the openings that are simply boarded up that lead to windows and doors on the floors above

Meredith had done such a great job choosing this restaurant. We closed the place down. And not to mention probably drank the bar dry. Out server was the greatest. He turned into one of the party and would come up and have a drink with us every now and again. Apparently, the restaurant is very sought after, and many actors request to eat here, and in the elevator shaft. George our server, at one point came up and told us that another table had asked him who was up at our table tonight, thinking that there was a group of rock stars. Our server simply responded that to respect their patrons he was not able to divulge out identity ;-) The food was phenomenal as we just kept ordering and ordering.

the typical snapshot of Meredith eating bread.

Meredith posing as the stem of the champagne flute

toasting to Leanna

I cannot even remember all that we had ordered. I believe we had white wine, red wine, 2 bottles of sparking white wine, our server brought us a bottle of sparkling rose, and and then after our coffees we had got a round of port on the house!

After paying, we headed over to the loung, and Matthieu came to join us. There, he bought a large bottle of champagne for everyone. It is there that Leanna asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. So for the rest of the night we became the bridal suite.

a group shot in the lounge

I don't know how we decided and agreed to do this, but in only our clothes, we took pictures outside...

Meredith and Matthieu

We left the lounge to cab it over to Butch McGuire's to continue the festivities.

running to hail the one cab we saw open

at Butch McGuire's - Lauren, Alex (Meredith's apartment mate) and Leanna

We did not stay long at that bar. It was too crowded and loud and too many drunk people. It was our last night together, and we didn't want to waste it. So we all cabbed it back to Meredith's place with a bunch of people, and had our own party. We changed into lounge wear and all continued to indulge in wine, and watched a slideshow Meredith had put together two years ago.

Alex, I, Meredith and Lauren

I was pointing finger not to take the picture because I am stuffing my face with tortilla chips. Ok so I wasn't doing so well by then, I needed carbs...



The party lasted until 6:00 am. The sun was coming up outside when we had all finally unwound and passed out. By 11:00am we were all up and ready to seize the few hours we had left together. It was a very clear and sunny day, which led me to believe that it was a little warmer. Oh boy was I mistaken...


So we headed over to Navy Pier to do lunch. This was probably the only other thing, besides going for cocktail, that was touristy that we did all weekend. We had a great lunch at Riva Resturant, having simply a glass or two of wine and plenty of bread. Mind you, we look a little worn out seeing as we had woken up, tossed on some clothes and out the door.

at the table Sunday morning

Navy Pier (portion of the skyline in the back)

This last photo was taken by Matthieu right in the middle of the can-can that we were dancing~

So we cabbed it back home, it was 3:00 pm by then. Lauren's flight was at 5:20 pm at O'Hare, which is 40 minutes without traffic. But as many know, the two seasons in Chicago are winter and construction, and with our luck there was construction and winter that day! We went home, Lauren stuffed her suitcase and was out the door. There was absolutely no time for emotional good byes, which may be a good thing. After she left Leanna, Meredith and I lounged, then went to Starbucks, since I only had one hour left before I had to leave. As we sat, sipping our coffees, we were trying to imagine if Lauren was either frantic running around the airport or simply sitting at her gate waiting. WE called, and luckily she had made it and was lounging at the gate waiting. So then it was my turn. We had lost track of time, and left Meredith's place at 5:20 pm and my flight was at 7:00 pm. Again, no time for formal emotional good byes, as I hopped into a cab and kept my fingers crossed that there wouldn't be any traffic. I admit, in the back of my mind I was hoping that I didn't make my flight since there weren't any others that night. But I did, and off I was headed back to the West Coast at 7:00 pm.