NeoCon

I just got back, last night at 11pm, from a trip to Chicago my office sent me on. Every year the city hosts a huge trade show called NeoCon for anyone in the industry at their merchandise mart which is a huge building on the canal that houses showroom after showroom of furniture, fabrics, carpets, wallcoverings, kitchen & bath fixtures, you name it and there's probably a showroom for it somewhere. It was a great, whirlwind trip, and beyond the merchandise mart I just want to recommend Chicago for anyone looking for a cool city to visit because I can't wait to go back with Chris to do a little more exploring.

I'll give you as much of a condensed version as I can. Our plane landed around 9am, we caught a cab and went straight to the mart where we checked our bags and tried to figure out where the heck to go. The building was huge and pretty difficult to navigate, especially with so many people there. Every time I turned around there was another line for a different set of elevators, it was crazy! I'd like to say we eventually figured it out, but it was just not possible to get the map in your head in less then 2 days. We signed up for a seminar, which was very informative, about the evolution of the open work space and how that will continue to change as the baby boomers retire since we'll have only one new worker coming in for every two leaving. If you're interested in seeing how it's evolving, google "google Zurich office" and check out their office in Zurich, it's pretty cool. We collected as much of the free stuff the showrooms were giving out as we could which was a lot of bags, some notebooks and pens, food & drink, and even teddy bears and my personal fav, soccer balls! That stuff plus all the product literature we picked up and my shoulders are still sore! After a Herman Miller showroom tour and my first ever red bull we finally found our hotel, checked in, and got to relax for a little while & shower before meeting back up with the Herman Miller people for dinner.

Being taken to dinner by furniture reps is always an experience because the company is picking up the tab. They ordered way more food then the 5 of us would ever eat and we drank two bottles of wine which were over $100 each! It was a very nice, relaxing way to end the evening as everyone was very friendly and the conversation flowed well for the almost three hours that we sat in the restaurant. Good stuff. Then I got to watch the last 2 minutes of the Celtics game "which Chris" before bed.

Yesterday I was up way too early which I'm blaming on the combination of not being in my own bed, and the red bull. So I lounged around a little, took my time getting all the junk I'd acquired the day before packed and ready for the plane ride home. We checked out around 8:30, grabbed a quick breakfast and lugged all of our stuff back to the mart so we could hit a couple more showrooms before our time was up. Then we took a cab to Navy Pier and took an architectural ferry ride/tour along the canal which was a great way to end the trip. Still work-related but we got out in the sun, it was a beautiful day, and got to sit down and enjoy the city a little bit.

And now, for any of you interested in seeing Chicago, here are the few tips I have to offer.
1. Try to fly out of Midway airport instead of O'Hare. O'Hare was crowded, had really long lines, both checking in and security, and a lot of connector flights go through there so for a fairly small airport it's full to the brim with people.
2. Take the train! We spent almost $40 on a cab ride from the airport to the mart on Tuesday morning and $2 a person to take the train back Wednesday afternoon. Trains go to downtown from both airports, orange line from Midway and blue line from O'Hare.
3. Check out Navy Port! This is where we took the Architectural ferry tour from, but they had so much more I wish we had had a little time to walk around. There are at least a half dozen different boat tours to chose from, shopping and even some carnival rides, and that's just what I did see.
4. As some of you may know, Chicago was where Frank Lloyd Wright began his career as an architect where among other things, he popularized the prairie style home in the 1900's. I don't want to get into an architecture lesson but there are many different tours you could take to see some of the really cool buildings he designed. I was a little sad I didn't get to see the Robie House which I had done a project on in Design 2.
5. And I would be remiss not to mention the fact that Chicago has two baseball teams to watch, the Cubs at Wrigley Staduim and the White Sox at the much lesser known U.S. Cellular Field (I had to look it up). FYI, Red Sox play the White Sox in August. :)