Hi everyone, I’m back from Chicago!  Yea!  After getting up before the sun on Friday to make sure I had pleanty of time before my flight, I get to the airport and discover that it was delayed 90 minutes resulting from the massive thunderstorm that flooded the area the night before.  One of my co-workers was supposed to fly out on Thursday and ended up on my morning flight.  That made sitting around at the airport more enjoyable.  Additionally, she had a rental car so now I had an easier way to get to the hotel!  Or so I thought.

 We landed around 1:20pm local time.  It took an hour to pick-up the rental because no one at Alamo had their head screwed on straight.  Oy!  Then we got lost, got lunch and got lost again.  It took 2 hours to find the hotel!  We ended up finding Toyota Park and doubling back from there with the directions we had.  Google maps is not the best map source for Chicago, I can tell you that much.  By the time my co-worker dropped me off, my boss had already made it back to the hotel from the Board meeting, which was held downtown.  I was at the hotel for about 30 minutes before my boss and I headed to Cominsky Park (US Cellular Park) to watch the Red Sox play the White Sox (the Red Sox kicked Chicago’s butt 10-1).  Did I mention I had a migrane?  No?  Well I did, so most of the night I spent staring aimlessly down at the field.  The game was fun though.  All of Munster and USA Rugby were in attendance.  After the game, it was back to the hotel (an hour away) and I was in bed by midnight. 

Nigel (CEO) had called me right after I got into the hotel the 1st time and said he wanted me downtown for the Congress meeting at 8am.  That meant leaving the hotel at 7…ok, I’ll get up early.  Well, that was true.  Because of the migrane and I think because I only ate lunch on Friday, I was up every 10 minutes throughout the night feeling sick.  It sucked.  My boss had set the alarm for us to get up at 5:45, but when she was setting the alarm she accidentally pushed the hour up on the time, so our 5:45 alarm was actually at 4:45 (or 3:45 Mountain Time).  We just decided to stay up.  It was raining too that morning, so I got to drive the rental (a convertable PT Cruiser — that’s another story) into downtown in the rain.  Yes!!!  So excited about that!

I was able to get to the building (on the river) downtown by 8:20.  Not too shabby, especially since I made several wrong turns in the city.  Several of us driving around Chicago over the weekend became Queens of Illegal U-Turns.  Lol!  I was one of them.  Apparently in Illinois, it is illegal to make a U-Turn unless it is posted that you may do so.  The meeting went well with the Congress & Board in attendance and I was able to escape around 5:00pm.  I headed back to the hotel in the rental, my boss stayed with the Congress/Board for dinner and to ensure they didn’t miss the bus to take them back to the hotel.  I then went to dinner with two good friends from CA that moved to Chicago 2 years ago.  Hung out with them for a bit then it was off to bed…this time around 11:00.

Sunday was game day.  We had to be at Toyota Park by 6:45am, so it was another early morning.  That makes three in a row with one night of decent sleep.  Oy!  Funny story from Sunday…my boss and I had to make a water run to buy 20 cases of Aquafina (the stadium sells Aquafina, so that’s what we brought in).  We bought out a CVS and most of a Walgreens.  As were pushing the carts to the car (which was parked in front of the store) my boss’s makes a weird noise and stops.  We were both confused, thinking she ran over something, but there was nothing under the cart.  Ok…whatever…we continue on…kinda.  I push my cart and after a couple of inches it too stops.  Those stupid magnetic wheel locking devices buried in the parking lot were behind our car…so even though we were parked right in front of the store, we couldn’t get the carts to the SUV.  We tried to move the carts away from the magnetic line area, but even that didn’t unlock the tires, so we hauled the 20 cases to the SUV.  Oy!  Once everything was loaded we didn’t want to leave the carts stuck in the lane and behind other cars so we literally dragged them to the front of the store.  I think maybe one wheel was working on my cart.  It was very funny, but perhaps you needed to be there.

The match with Munster on Sunday was great fun to watch…even though we lost in the 2nd half of the game.  Boo!  We were doing well too!  Almost scored on a try but the player dropped the ball as he was touching it down.  Our only scores were from rugby’s equivalent to a field goal.  The final score was 10-6 Munster.  After the game Jen and I didn’t stick around long, we didn’t want to get lost and miss our flight.  We didn’t.  Landed in Denver around 9:30, then Noah and I took my boss home, went back to our house and I then I was out.  Got up at 7:00 this morning, into the office by 8:10 and was the first one here.  I think there are 4 of us total in the office right now (CEO, CFO, me and someone down else…probably NCAA).  Anyway, I’m pooped and finding it had to stay awake, despite my Red Bull & Coke loaded with caffine.  Regardless it was a long, quick and exhausting weekend but a lot of fun!

Sorry, no pictures or souveniers (unless you count my Munster flag that a nice Irish man that works for Munster gave to me, or my credential that allowed me to wander anywhere around Toyota Park), there just wasn’t any time.

It’s final now.  I spoke with my boss and with the CEO in regards to the verdict on France.  It has been decided that I will remain at the National Office during the World Cup to ensure it does not fall apart while 1/2 the staff is in Europe. 

The trip to France is now up in the air. The CEO wants to know who’s going and why coupled with issues between coaches. So perhaps, sometime before the end of August we will know for sure whether or not I will be going to France. We do have confirmation (flight & hotel booked) that I will be in Chicago August 24-26th to help out with the Congress meeting and the USA Eagles vs Munster match.

Going to be in the Chicago area? Want to buy tickets to the Munster match? Tickets available here.

Today I received confirmation that she will be helping out the Men’s National Team at this years Rugby World Cup in France! She will be meeting up with the team in Chicago on/before August 25th and then leave for France around September 1st. Depending on how well the team does, she will be back between October 1-21st.

The cities the USA team will be playing in are: Lens, Saint-Etienne and Montpelier. If they make it to the Semi-Finals/Quarter Finals, 3rd/4th Place or even the Finals (not very likely), those games will be in: Marseilles, Cardiff (Wales), Saint-Denis, & Paris.