I left town and you didn't even notice /// Three to tango

I flew to Chicago.

Downtown Chicago is one of the most impressive-looking downtowns I have ever seen. There are these huge, impressively architected buildings all very close, as if they're trying to overpower the land they’re forced into. At street level, if you're not looking up, it seems fairly normal.

I got in a cab where the guy never checked his blind spot. The first time the car he almost sideswiped was an unmarked police car. The cop used his bull-horn to say, "You better watch it there, buddy." Of course ten minutes later, the cabbie does it again. And then once more, for good measure.

My plane back was delayed 1 hr 45 min or so. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with two women and a man who were going to Argentina "for dancing, food, and shoes. In that order." They are in to tango enough that they fly from Chicago to Buenos Aires every year. And it doesn't hurt that you could get what would be a $50 four-course meal stateside for ten bucks, and they know about this guy who makes shoes by hand in such a bad part of town, that last time the cabbie refused to leave until he saw they had actually entered the building. They're my kind of people when they travel, too: "Who wants to go in October [or did they say April?] when all the Americans and Europeans fly in to town? They want to see people they could meet at home, just down there. If I go, and everyone speaks Spanish and I meet no one from home, I'm happy." You can't meet the locals there back here. Isn't that part of why we travel on vacation?