Crane's pax east adventure... or lack thereof.

NewspaperCrane

NewspaperCrane

Well-Known Member
Alright, this thread is going to be a chronicle of my trip to pax. I'm writing this via forumrunner on my phone so ill ask you to excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes.

For those of you who don't know, goskidmark and I are taking the train to pax. You may be asking yourself at this point "Who the eff takes the train?!" I do, and that's the last I will hear on that topic.

Anyways... I got on the train at 5:24 this morning to board to Chicago. At the train station it was freaking creepy. It was all echoy and there was no one else there. At least until these two other people showed up with a dog. It was kind of odd, who the heck brings their dog to the train station a 5 am? Thats not to mention the fact that they were also kind of shady looking. I assumed they were meth dealers and tried not to make eye contact.

Soon enough the train showed up, and I hopped on board. One of my bags was quickly taken from me and I was ushered to a seat which thankfully had a plug for my netbook. Turned on my computer and tethered my phone. I spent about half an hour fiddling with twitter, my regular news, and facebook before listening to pandora and then watching the first half of pulp fiction. Overall the short train ride wasn't bad. There were a few times when it smelled pretty bad, though I wasn't sure if that was people farting, or the towns we were passing through.
 
So... I got into Chicago about 8:20 this morning. 35 minutes later, I was finally allowed to leave the train. Upon the train doors opening I was sent scrambling to find the bag which had been taken from me. Not having been told where they put it, I asked the guy who was standing at the door. He told me that it was probably somewhere "over there" *points at giant heap of baggage*. Ten minutes later I found my bag. It probably didn't help that I had forgotten exactly what my bag looked like (Generic black rolling bag... with one of those extendo-handles).

Soon, I was out of the train, and into Union Station. Union station is a bustling place full of WTF, just like any other terminal. People going every which direction. I couldn't find my way out at first, finally I just walked one direction until I found a door to the street. Once outside... I was smacked in the face with Downtown Chicago. Buildings so tall I couldn't even see the tops... but that was because there was a fog layer maybe 40 feet up. There was so much going on... business people walking around, people being stupid and running in front of cars... you know, shit like that.

It was at this point that I realized... I was alone in a city with no where to go, and nothing to do. So what did I decide to do? What anyone would do... pick a direction, and start walking. As I started walking, I noticed something. Apparently no one in chicago pays any attention to what the cross walk signs say. They pretty much just walk out into traffic whenever they damn well please and make people stop for them. I however, would prefer to not get run over by a city bus... so I waited.

As I was walking in my single direction, I decided to find a place to sit down... maybe get something to drink, and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my day, until my train got here. So, I find a Starbucks, buy a drink, sit down, and mooch some delicious, delicious wifi. I was officially one of those laptop douchebags. I even ordered a glass of water. The guy behind the counter told the person who was making the drinks to get the water, but instead he decided to be a smartass and tell the person that I wanted h2o... "That's two h's and one O". The person making the drink did not look amused. This is what I found written on my cup.

As far as the people in the starbucks go... I don't think I've ever seen so many trenchcoats, khaki's, and thick rimmed glasses in my life. I kind of wanted to go on a hipster punching tangent (it wasn't just hipsters there, there were a lot of business people there too... which explains the trenchoats)

After about an hour and a half of just sitting there, I decided to move on. I continued in my one direction, and that's when I saw it. Right outside the starbucks I was at, there was a bridge. On the other side of the bridge was *I swear to god* another freaking starbucks. This one had a sign in the window that said "Now Open", as if they were a new store. This one actually looked a lot nicer than the one I was at, though I didn't go inside.

You would think that that was it... but I SHIT YOU NOT... one block later, there was another starbucks. I'm starting to loath this town.
 
"
La Crosse (WI), with over 360 bars, is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most bars per capita and also for the most bars on one street."
 
This is an interesting read. I'm envious of you and everyone else going to PAX this year. I'm definitely going to have to go in 2012. If we're still alive.
 
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