John and I flew to Chicago last Saturday for what was probably the most fun wedding I’ve been to – one of “my guys” from Islamabad, Brett, got married, and we were delighted to be invited to the celebration. We stayed at the lovely Palmer House, an old historic hotel not far from Michigan Avenue. Saturday night was happy hour for wedding guests at the hotel lobby bar, so we got to catch up with some of our old Islamabad friends; I was also happy to finally meet Brett’s family. The thing that made the wedding so fun (aside from the fact I really like the couple) was the venue – the Field Museum. We had the entire place to ourselves and were free to wander around all night – a little spooky! The ceremony, dinner, and dance were all in the main hall with a huge dinosaur skeleton looming over us – so fun!
We spent Saturday at the Shedd Aquarium and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We walked home along the lake – it was cold, but nice and sunny. Click to see all of our Chicago pictures.
We got home Monday night, and I left the next morning for Belize to work. I enjoy going down there – for one thing, I missed the DC snow (!), and I also really like the people in the consular section. The chief and I went to dinner the night I arrived, and I went to dinner the next night with an A100 colleague who’s working there. We ended the week with happy hour with several folks Friday night, and I flew home Saturday, an all-day ordeal (it’s so close on the map, yet it was a 14-hour travel day).