ADVENTURES OF DOUG AND LARRY - DAY TWO - GIANTS WIN IN THE COLD

Last night, tired as we were from the trek into town from the airport, we decided to have our evening meal at the hotel restaurant. It is one of those places with extremely high ceilings and normal conversation becomes a din as dineers try to outdo each other to be heard at their respective tables.

The food was a little too "haute cuisine -ish" for my taste as the chef is an expert in using local meats and vegetables and is heavily into pickling. So we had pickled beets with nuts and pickled cabbage leaves as a lead in and my main course was a pork scallopine with a sauce I didn't really understand.

We parted for our rooms and the plan was to get up early enough to find some breakfast before proceeding to Wrigley. However, Doug, a notorious night owl, overslept somewhat and we didn't get started until 10 AM. We decided that we would just pick up ball park food.

Doug checked game start time, thinking it was 1:05PM, but it was indeed a noon start so we got bundled up for the forty degree, cloudy and windy forecast and took a cab to Addison.

We found our way to great seats in the third row just behind the Giants dug out on the first base side, then went back to the concession area for a slice of Chicago style deep dish pizza, two Chicago hot dogs, and two Old Styles to wash it all down with.

There were a surprising number of fans in San Francisco gear,including two young ladies who sat directly in front of us. Not much happened in the early innings; no home runs or multiple runners but finally the Giants put two runs on the board and added a third in the 7th.

The Cubs managed a home run with a runner on base in their half of the inning but the Gaints hung on to win 3-2 in nine innings. The last Cubs batter, on his final strike, fell to the ground in agony and it took some time to get him to his feet.

We decided to take the CTA bus back to the hotel as that is a much cheaper ride than the cabs. I did find it interesting that Chicago's taxi cab fleet is now made up of Priuses.

We are scheduled to leave the hotel for Italian food at 7 PM so I have a little time to rest now!

We are back from dinner at Topo Gigio's Italian Restuaurant, in despite its name, the food was very very good! Doug had the veal scallopine with capers which was sliced wonderfully thin and exquisitely seasoned.

I chose the Italian sausage ragu over porcini mushrooms and home made pasta. The Italian sausage was very much like mine, I found, and the serving was immense. I ended up bringing at least two thirds of it back to my room.

I just finished taking a very long soak in my bath tub - fell asleep twice --and now I am going to snooze until Kim calls around 10PM. This vacationing is hard work!

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