Days 9 & 10: First Sabbatical Weekend

I have to be honest, Week 1 freaked me out a little bit. I'd been working almost every day for three years so I wasn't used to having so much time off and spending it at home. I got bored.

Things started turning around on Day 8 (Friday) when my friend Jamie came to hang with me. We had lunch at Longman and Eagle, which was surprisingly bad. I'd been for lunch and brunch before but I think we ordered the wrong stuff this time. She got the PBR breakfast and I got the Greek salad and a side of home fries. Both not good. Anyway, having her around really added some structure to my day and we finished it out with dinner at Silver Cloud, which I liked quite a bit. Jamie and I split the extra deluxe house salad with blackened chicken and green goddess dressing and a side of garlic bread. Very comforting.

On Day 9, I purchased quails, pork tenderloin and skirt steak at Paulina Meat Market. I'd been planning an Asian barbecue for Day 10. That evening, I attended the closing night for the Grant Park Music Festival. Since one of my former coworkers sings in the chorus, he reserved some seats for me in the fancy area! That's right, I got to sit in the seats instead of on the lawn.

Look how close!

The Grant Park Orchestra, the Grant Park Chorus, four soloists, and conductor Carlos Kalmar performed Verdi's Requiem. Full details about the performance can be found using this link. It was indeed majestic and sitting in the seats was a cool experience as well. However, there were two uncool portions of the evening:

• The man behind me spilled a can of soda and didn't say anything about it. I only noticed what he'd done after I tried to get something out of my bag, which I'd set at my feet, and found it completely soaked with cola. Who spills something and then doesn't say anything to the people downwind? Classy move, sir. 
• During the last movement, some random Asian dude sat down in the empty seats in front of me and started taking a video with his cell phone. I saw the clips he recorded and based on when he hit the record button and his framing, I can tell you that he had absolutely no idea what the fuck he was looking at. I see this everywhere. People recording and photographing "moments" on their cellphones have no concept of media capture quality and seem to be documenting for the sake of documenting. Really, can someone illuminate this for me? He, like so many others, was tastelessly disruptive.

Since half the point of seeing a concert in Grant Park is about bringing a picnic, I brought some sandwiches from Bobo's Market, located on Chicago Ave at Damen, to the concert.

The duck confit sandwich with fig

Chicken sandwich with dijon balsamic vinaigrette

These sandwiches were pretty disappointing. The duck confit was a special so I thought it would taste complete, but it really didn't. The chicken sandwich was plain and did not come with the side of sriracha I requested -- probably would've been a great improvement. I'd blame the chicken sandwich on myself since it's kind of a "make your own" situation at Bobo's, but this was a recommendation from the owner. Not. That. Remarkable. Still, given its location, I'd be willing to give it another try.

Later that evening, I went on a bar crawl for my friend Tom's 30th birthday. The agenda included Happy Village and Innertown Pub. Seeing a bunch of friends and former coworkers from my last job made it easier for me to realize that I didn't work at my former company anymore. This was a big turning point in my sabbatical. Since then I've been way more self-directed in planning activities for myself during the week.

In the afternoon on Day 10, I went to Uptown to buy some Asian groceries for the barbecue and stopped at Nhu Lan Bakery for bahn mi sandwiches. These were way better than the sandwiches I had from Bobo's the night before.

The #1, the classic, and #11, lemongrass tofu.

I love Nhu Lan Bakery but it's really chaotic in there. I like eating my sandwiches right away but the seating area is small, a bit cut-throat, and there are no boundaries. While waiting for my sandwich at one of the tables, a woman in a workout skirt and workout tank top set her bag down right in front of me and, with her back to me, started stuffing her change into what must have been a back pocket hidden in inside of the skirt. I'm sure it made sense to her at the time, but she was invading my space and rooting around in her ass, which was right in front of my face. Gah.

The barbecue later that evening turned out well. I should've taken photos but simply forgot. We started with summer rolls that were stuffed with slices of roasted pork tenderloin, shrimp, thin rice noodles, Thai basil, mint, culantro (yes, that's a "u"), garlic chives, carrots and cucumber. Then we moved on grilled quails that had been marinated in coriander, fish sauce, shallot, garlic, and other ingredients. We finished with lemongrass beef lettuce wraps.

All in all, a great weekend. Even though I'm not working right now, I like the idea of doing more fun things during the weekend and saving weekdays for more productive activities. Stay tuned for Week 2 -- when I really start taking to my sabbatical.