There I was, at another lawyers’ gathering, listening to yet another recitation about how AI will change everything from our legal rights to our socks. Halfway through, I realized: For once the conference room did not look as dreary as an anteroom of an oversized funeral home. This one was quite distinctive, with charcoal gray wooden paneling and tan fabric wall coverings framing clean shelves lighted in amber and displaying Japanese-style vases. I should have expected no less because I had been brought to the Nobu, the only five-star hotel in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago.
So impressed was I with this unexpected divergence from the banal, I did friends in town a favor by calling to say I would not be crashing in their spare room after all. Instead, I rolled my carry-on to the front desk, where I learned the hotel was a member of the Leading Hotels of the World—and, as luck would have it, I belong to their Leaders Club. This was obviously an invitation from providence to book a short stay. I rolled onward, into a “Zen Suite,” thereby detouring my business trip into an ad hoc experience of elegance.
If that sounds self-indulgent, consider that business travel is not just tiring and professionally demanding. If what you are mostly doing is working somewhere other than home and maybe dining at restaurants you have not visited before, that is barely even what a travel writer would call travel—or trouble to write about. Being cut off from the familiar and having to look and sound your best while in a professional setting can also bring on a disquieting sense of loneliness, even in a crowded meeting room.
Pampering yourself into better spirits is not just good for your soul; because a positive frame of mind is a necessary predicate to correct action, it is good for business. That is why, although you probably could find enough work to fill all your free time and then hurry home by the quickest means, if even the slightest play in your schedule allows you to digress just a bit, please do. Take those fleeting moments of potentially improved productivity and turn your business trip into a proper travel experience.
This time, I used my first pleasurable interlude to take a boat ride. By long tradition, boats cruise up and down the Chicago River and into Lake Michigan for what are known as architecture tours of the urban landscape. I chose an open-air craft run by the Seadog company—because I liked the name. Our guide, Darren, stood at the prow. Although he was only 19 years of age, from memory and for nearly 90 minutes Darren recited the names, architects, styles, and construction details of every significant skyscraper along a river that cuts through the center of town like a creek through a crowded pine forest. It had not yet occurred to me to look up and appreciate the assemblage of all that glass, steel, and concrete for the significant expression of American design that it has become. The excursion itself was a relaxed, entertaining and a credibly geeky way to spend an hour and a half at sea.
My next fleeting opportunity for personal time became a return visit to the American Writers Museum, which highlights important American authors and their works. The museum, which fills the second floor of an office building, offers simple displays—American lit lite, as it were—as in the one where you are asked to read the first line of a famous book and recall its title. You spin the placard holding the line to reveal the answer.
A desk contains manual typewriters, and you are encouraged to bang out original prose. In the days before personal computing, I took the mandatory touch-typing class at what is now called middle school. The class was a cacophony of key strikes and a charmless symphony of end-of-line bells. It was the only time I ever scored straight Ds, but I came away grateful that, surely, I would never again be asked to type anything.
At another station, hang tags were provided on which you could compose a note about your family’s immigration experience and suspend it from a wall peg. I abridged my clan’s own arrival story to read in full: “They tried to kill us, so we came here.” That the museum works hard to keep writing accessible and unintimidating is likely an indication of the nation’s declining appreciation of the raw expressive power of American English and of the emotive resonance of American literature.
When cadging personal time while away on business, a key to success is finding things that are fun but can be easily reached and enjoyed quickly. In Lincoln Park, the city maintains the smaller of the region’s two zoos. It is surprisingly complete, however, and—this is important—it is both near the business center and free, meaning that you can easily stop in for 30 minutes to see a few beasts without feeling cheated. My own visit was hardly much longer, but I managed to have quality time with penguins and primates—ever in the company of my much-traveled plush (and business-suit pocketable) comfort monkey, Sigmund. There was a long line for cotton candy, however; when you have a meeting to catch, unfortunate comprises must be made.
Remember, it is a business trip and the kids and other loved ones will expect you to bring back something local. I managed a quick detour to a shop of Fannie May, the century-old chocolatier founded in Chicago. I left the store with a box of chocolates and was therefore later granted safe passage back into my home.
For my final night, I dined, of course, at Nobu restaurant, where Chef Edgar Escalante Vazquez and his team provide their take on the brand’s distinctive Japanese-fusion cuisine. I started with some surprisingly complex miso soup, which is served the traditional way—in a bowl to be drunk from, no spoon offered. For one of the following courses (I am sure I have notes somewhere that list exactly how many dishes I tried), I had the A5 Wagyu beef (the highest grade), which was tender beyond all imagining, the meat carved into neat strips and set alight at my table. The sudden geyser of flame surprised a man dining nearby, but it would not be a gourmet Japanese meal without at least one unique quirk of style.
My meetings were successful (thank goodness!), and my flight back home was delightfully uneventful. When I return to Chicago for my next visit, I will again call the friends with whom I was supposed to stay this time—and invite them to dine with me at Nobu.
Chicago To-Do List
I flew Spirit Airlines for the first time, booking their more comfortable Big Front Seat class. www.spirit.com.Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago; (312) 742-2000. Free to all
