An Italian, A Hungarian, and A Frenchman Walk Into A Bar

On this day, it happened to be the same bar that Iris, Isabel, and I walked into.  After a solid week of being sick with the flu, I was finally ready to face that big ball of fire in the sky that had been blinding me through the crack in my drapes each time I peeked out from behind my sleeping mask.  I had heard that the weather had taken a huge turn toward spring so I called my girlfriends and we decided to do something “low-key”.

Sweatpants and tshirt clad – thanks to the handsome stranger that Iris met at Sundance, she has finally given in to what I have been advising her of for months; tshirts are a great item of clothing in which to spend a Saturday – we decided to walk over to a neighborhood restaurant/bar to grab a bite to eat while we planned out what would hopefully be a much more fabulous evening.  Due to the unseasonably warm streak for March in Chicago, every single inhabitant in the city seemed to be out… which meant waiting 30-40 minutes to get a table. Therefore, with drinks in hand we decided to make our peace with the bar and within minutes had made new friends with Luca, Arthur, and Fred (Italy, Hungary, France respectively).  They were consultants in town for business for a few days and a friend recommended that they eat at the hidden gem in Lincoln Park.  It was 3:30 pm on Saturday.

I realize to some it might sound strange to make friends so quickly with three men from foreign countries… but in my world, this is an average weekend.  That’s the great thing about having a sparkling personality in a big city; you often attract fun people and well, bumps on logs that are looking to suck the fun out of you wherever you go. Once we got over the initial language barriers, we decided to have dinner together. What followed was 12 hours of dedicated training to prep my liver for St. Patrick’s Day festivities this next weekend.

After dinner, we had a few bottles of Prosecco on my rooftop and made plans to meet up again in a couple hours once the gentleman had showered and we had ditched the sweatpants for stilettos.  We all met up at The Wit a few hours later and headed out to paint the town with international colors.  The Wit has an amazing rooftop bar, but it happened to be booked for a private event so we went to Tavern On Rush where we laughingly schooled the boys on the games of the Viagra Triangle, an environment we had become far too familiar with lately due to our unceasing love for the Strawberry Blonde martinis. Over the next couple of hours, I had just the right number of martinis to make a nightclub sound like a good idea.  The next thing I knew we were dancing at Underground until…well, the sun wasn’t quite up but it wasn’t completely hidden from the horizon either.

I’d fill you in on the shenanigans that went down at that hole but they would all be hearsay, as I have only flashes of memory from the 5 or 6 hours we spent no doubt gyrating on the dance floor.

I do, however, remember seeing one of my friends licking the face of one of the traveling consultants right in the middle of the dance floor. Then and there I should have packed it in, said goodnight, grabbed my ladies by the hands and hit the road… but thoroughly “Strawberry Blonded Laura” just stumbled over to the bar and struck up a conversation with the dreamy bartender.  I felt completely triumphant when the evening ended with the customary exchanging of numbers between myself and the model bartender- clad in hipster glasses, which by the way, I have recently added to my list of “yes please”es.  It wasn’t until he called me the next day to discuss “blogging” that I realized that I had wooed him with my knowledge of the cyber universe as opposed to my other “assets”.  Damn those martinis and that table that I may or may not have tripped over!

I have to admit, I was impressed that I made it to “recap brunch” the next morning.  Iris, on the other hand, pulled off a much more impressive feat and made it to work at 7am (which yes, gave her time for 30 minutes of rest, 30 minutes of prep, and 30 minutes of travel). I haven’t done anything THAT ambitious since college! …actually let’s be honest here, in college I would have pulled the covers back up over my head and resigned to “borrow” notes from that shy guy that was always starring at me from two rows over.

Another exciting weekend in Chicago has passed, and with already half of the work week gone… I’m more than ready to get into a little St. Patty’s Day mischief!

Posted by Independent Belle at 9:15 pm | in General | Comments (1)