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As I mentioned, I spent NYE 2009 in Chicago with many of my fraternity brothers. We had a blast: Makeshift put on a great show at Goose Island, we met up with cousins Kelly and Patrick on the 1st, and despite the wrong team winning at the United Center, we did our best to cheer the Illini to victory. Our family had a lovely evening downtown on the 2nd, before we headed for home on the 3rd.

I arrived in Chicago just a little behind schedule, checked into my hotel, and met up with Meixner, Pritchard, and Pritchard’s girlfriend Claire (Claire seems awesome. She traded Star Trek quotes with Nathan, for example.), for dinner. I dropped by Pritch’s place first and was quite impressed, as he has a very nice setup. Nathan had landed in Chicago by this time, and based on what he told me, the locals thought he was headed in entirely the wrong way on the El. (It turned out that they were wrong, and he was fine.) We took the opportunity to have a beer and then decided to go to Portillo’s (where I had a delicious beef/sausage combo) for dinner before Nathan arrived. (Pritch was out of beer, which would have made Nate angry…)

After dinner, I returned to the hotel, where Nathan was waiting for us. The others went to buy beer and we pre-gamed a bit while I changed into my suit. We were looking great, and after finishing the beer we hailed a cab bound for Wrigleyville.

Upon arriving at Goose Island, we caught up with all the brothers who made it out. There were too many to list, but I was particularly impressed with Raff’s beard. It was also good to see Monge and the Makeshift crew—Patrick, Sherwin, Peter, Will, and Vomsi. Lattner and I had a good chat, and he mentioned that his family just bought two Deere combines. We were a little disappointed that the bar closed at 1 a.m., but it was probably for the best.

After the bar closed, I made way outside and started walking down Clark Street while trying to hail a cab. It was a mile or so (or at least it felt like it) before I was finally successful, and some other dude tried to steal it from me. I pushed him out of the way and jumped into the cab, but not before he asked where I was heading. It turned out that his stop was on the way, so he gave me $10 to share the ride. Considering the total cost was $12 to get back to the hotel, that worked out well.

The next morning, Nathan and I woke and got a delicious breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant. The omelet chef suggested that we include jalapeños in our eggs, because it would help sweat out the hangover. I took him up on his offer, and was well rewarded, while Nathan just scoffed.

After breakfast, we still had an hour left before we were due to check out, so we went back to bed. Nathan called for a late checkout, which was granted—we were to be out by 1 p.m. We ended up finally vacating the room at 1:15 p.m., but not before inadvertently having someone bring us bottles of shampoo. When the staff member saw the room, his face dropped… Ha.

We then made our way to Meixner’s condo, where we planned to stay on the 1st. Meixner had been nice enough to have us stay there last year, and shockingly he invited us back. (It might be more accurate to say Nathan invited us back, actually.) We hung out there for a while, eventually heading back to Wrigleyville to meet up with Raff, Tom, and the crew.

Raff invited us over for the Rose Bowl, during which we had a few beers and rooted for the Big Ten. He was headed to a concert (for some band I had not previously heard…) that night, so we ordered some pizza to Tom’s apartment and made our way over there. The walking distances from the El stop to Raff’s, and from Raff’s to Tom’s, were not unreasonable, but it was about 5°F, with a strong wind, and we froze.

Walking into Tom’s apartment was like hitting a wall of stench. He had hosted Kelby, Luke, Crappy, and Borsdorf, and the five of them should be disallowed from being holed up in enclosed spaces. Other than the odor, which would have been unavoidable anywhere, Tom’s place wasn’t too shabby. It’s a decent starter apartment in a solid neighborhood. Presently, our pizza arrived, and Dave, Nate, and I feasted on the stuffed supreme from Chicago’s Pizza. (There was even enough for Kelby, Luke, and Tom, astonishingly enough…)

After playing some Halo, into the details of which I will not delve, we made our way back out into the cold. We wanted to meet up with Kelly and Patrick, but Tom’s apartment has particularly poor cell phone reception. There is a bar called Nick’s Uptown about a block from Tom’s place, so we stopped in there while we tried to get a hold of them. We were literally the only ones there other than the staff, so service was excellent, but we only stayed for a couple drinks.

Finally, we hailed a cab (using the international hand symbol for van-cab) and drove to State, which is basically on the De Paul campus. Kelly and Patrick were already there, so we grabbed a booth near them and hung out. Some other ΑΚΛs came out as well, which was great. Pat bought us some shots, I bought a few rounds, and a good time was had by all.

On the 2nd, we were up early (9:30 a.m., that is…) for the Illinois–Gonzaga game at the United Center. After an extraordinarily bad start—Illinois was down by 23 at one point—we battled back to force the game into overtime. (Actually, we were up by 8 at one point in the second half. We came back too quickly and basically ran out of gas.) Our seats were great, in the first row of the 100-level seats, slightly offset behind the basket. Unfortunately, our awful start doomed us (the officiating didn’t help—it was honestly some of the worst officiating, both ways, that I’ve seen) and Gonzaga won by a basket. Still, it was an exciting game, and Tom, Dad, Nathan, and I had a lot of fun.

After the game, I was scheduled to head home on a 5:55 p.m. train to Princeton, so Dad and I returned to Meixner’s to pick up my suitcase, and then went to Mom and Dad’s hotel. The rest of the family convinced me to stick around for the night, so we hung out until Tom met up with us. We then shared a champagne toast, congratulating everyone on their accomplishments in 2009. Overall, it was a good year for our family—I moved to India and bought a house upon my return; Tom studied abroad in Scotland, graduated from college, and started working at Diamond; Katie graduated from college and will start nursing school in a few days; and Kelly is doing very well at Harvard. The farm is doing well—Dad bought a new combine, tractor, backhoe, and other high-quality Deere equipment, and Mom is teaching the heck out of her students.

Tom showed us where he works in the Hancock building, and then we went downstairs and ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. (This was Mom’s choice, and it was a good one!) Since there was an hour-long wait for a table, we waited at the bar, where I had a martini and the rest had Sam Adams. Just before our table was called, a small roach crawled across the bar in front of me, and I killed it before anyone else but Tom saw anything. I handed the napkin with the bug to the barkeep and explained what it contained. He didn’t say much other than, “That’s not good,” and brought us the $50 bill when our table was called. Tom suggested I push back a little bit, so I said, “So… I kill a cockroach in your restaurant and I don’t even get a little discount here?” He saw my point, and retrieved the manager, who profusely apologized, told me they had just spent $100,000 on pest control, (something that actually didn’t really make me feel better…) and comp’d our drinks. (Honestly, the whole thing didn’t bother me that much, and the rest of the family was surprisingly blasé about the situation. After living in India a little bug here or there doesn’t disgust me anymore… We ended up joking about it while we considered the vast Cheesecake Factory menu, and eventually dropped it altogether.)

Dinner was excellent. Our waiter was very personable, and put up with our collective inability to pick our entrées. In the end, I had the herb-crusted salmon (pronounced correctly…) with mashed potatoes and asparagus, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Everyone shared a little bit of their meal with everyone else, and we had a lovely family dinner. It was a lot of fun.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel room and hung out for a while. Tom returned to his apartment and ended up going out with Nathan, Adam K, Raff, etc., while Katie, Kelly, and I stuck around and ended up discussing global affairs. We eventually called it a night fairly early, which accomplished for me the main reason I had originally wanted to head home Saturday night: a nice, relaxing evening, and an easy recovery time to be prepared for work Monday.

Sunday morning, Mom, Dad, and I enjoyed breakfast downstairs while the girls slept in. We eventually drove up to see Tom’s apartment, where we stayed for half an hour or so before heading for home. We stopped at Portillo’s on the way out of town, a suggestion of mine that was very well received.

That pretty well sums up my long NYE weekend in Chicago for the year. I was disappointed that I didn’t meet up with Bonk! or Kelsey, but it’s not like they live that far away (and besides, I’ve yet to throw a housewarming party!). I had a blast seeing those I did meet up with, rang in the new year in style, and lived to tell about it without too much suffering. Next year, maybe we head south for the holiday?