Transportation Problems, Crepes, and Spanish Movies

I drove to Chicago from Madison in the early afternoon on Wednesday so I could meet Shewara downtown after she got off work, and we could then head out for one of our patented fun-filled evenings. The plan was for me to drive to my hometown's train station and catch the 2:37 train into the city. The drive back from Madison is normally about 2 hours and 15 minutes or so, so when I left Madison at 12:20 I was cutting it pretty close. I sped home on I-90 only hit major traffic on the road that leads to my house, so I didn't get to the train station until 2:40. Luckily the train was stuck behind a larger freight train and running ten minutes late, so I made it just in time. Shewara and I would encounter similar transportation problems when The El stopped working at the Merchandie Mart stop, stalling all the trains in the Loop and preventing us from getting to the Diversey stop a few miles north. We had to get back out of the station and take the Red Line to Belmont instead, and then backtrack 3/5 of a mile to get to the corner of Diversey and Clark where our fun evening was planned.

Upon arrival, we went straight into the theater to purchase advance tickets for Volver, Pedro Almodovar's newest creation. We're big Almodovar fans, so we were happy to finally see one of his movies on the big screen, and on opening night even. Done with the ticket purchase, we headed out to find our dinner. After searching restaurant reviews the previous day, we determined that the only good place to eat was La Creperie, a small, cozy French crepe place right across from the movie theater. Shewara and I consider ourselves to be something of crepe connoisseurs, so the chance to have a Chicago crepe experience was right up our alley. I went for the chocolate and lemon crepe while she decided on the swiss cheese, and both were quite tasty. The waiter even seemed to expedite our service when I told him we had a movie to catch.

Satisfyingly full of crepe goodness, we went back across the street to get in line early for our film, only to discover that the theater wasn't ready yet. To pass time, I went to use the bathroom while Shewara shopped around the mall the thater was in. This turned out to be something of an ordeal for me. The stall I attempted to enter (and the only stall in the bathroom) defiantly confronted me with the fact that if I pushed the door into the stall to get inside, it would hit against the toilet and thus not be able to open far enough to allow me inside. I critically considered this phenomenon for a minute or two, never finding a solution (I sure as hell wasn't going to crawl on the floor) before realizing that the door also opened outward. There is always a simple solution to most of my problems.

Business done, I met Shewara back in line where we encountered an older couple (woman was in her 60s, I'd say) who would provide most of our amusement for the next few minutes. She was carrying a plastic bag with her when the ticket-taker said:
"You can't bring food into the theater, Ma'am."
"Oh, but it isn't food," she replied. "It's bread."
At this point I was rather confused by this food/bread dichotomy, but ticket-taker man cleared it up.
"Yeah, that's food. You'll have to leave it behind the counter."
And as if having an epiphany into the nature of culinary products she readily accepted the fact that her food was actually bread and left it behind the counter. We would actually encounter this woman again a few minutes later when she confusedly wandered into our theater and asked no one in particular if this was Theater 4. It was actually Theater 7, a fact I thought seemed obvious from the massive number 7 on the door, but apparently not. What amused me further is that she actually knew she probably wasn't in the right place, but didn't bother to read any of the huge numbers outside that perfectly correspond to the theater numbers. For all I know she is still asking where Theater 4 is.

After that, movie started, and it was good. The consensus seems to be that Almodovar's movies are getting less crazy, or lat least involving fewer crazy characters. Penelope Cruz was great (much better actress in Spanish than in English, but what native Spanish speaker isn't), and there were a lots of subtle in-dialogue humor that kept the potentially depressing storyline rather lighthearted. My favorite part was when Cruz was telling a man whom she was serving dinner to that tomorrow he would "Have food coming out of his ears," or at least that's what the subtitles said. In Spanish, she actually said "You'll have food coming out of your ass [culo]," a fact which all the bilingual people in the audience (us included) found hilarious due to the disconnect between Spanish dialogue and English subtitles. I'm still not sure why the didn't translate "ass," since the movie was rated R anyway.

So, fun night concluded, we went back into the Loop and caught our respective trains home. Thanksgiving was today, pretty standard fare for me - lots of turkey and dessert, and little offensive involvement in the annual family football game. I still contend that all my dropped passes are the QB's fault. But we won 32-12, so can't complain.

Tomorrow we are off to The Mexican Fine Arts Center/Museum in Pilsen to check out the annual Dia de los Muertos exhibit, and then I'm off to the Illinois-Miami U basketball game at night.