Day 1
We arrived safety in Chicago right around 5pm with minimal hassle and even found, from what I understand, an extremely coveted parking space right outside of 2317 Commonwealth. While I thought that I did an excellent job parallel parking, Kim (Jenna's neighbour) had to pull my car out and realign it, for fear that I would get a ticket. She gave us an excellent reception and tour of the condo, which by the way is JUST as beautiful as the photos.
Erin and I grabbed showers and are now enjoying a glass of the wine that Jenna left for us (she's out of town, hence Kim giving us the tour).
Erin and I stayed last night at Aunt Gail and Uncle Bill's (Thanks Again!). We got there about 8:00pm, enjoyed some wine, an EXCELLENT dinner, and a lot of laughs with them...it was the perfect way to start the trip. Also, extremely conveniently located just minutes from the US border :) We got up at 6:30 and got ready to go. Uncle Bill brushed off a FOOT of snow from the car, so it was nice and clean for us to get on our way - He was SO happy to have us there, a great reason to turn the heat up...really Uncle Bill, put on a sweater! With a quick stop to the gas station and, of course, Starbucks - and off we went. The border was UNBELIEVABLE!! There was 1 car in front of us at the gate...yes 1! Amazing. I handed over the passports, she asked where we were going "Chicago", why "Just to get away" who are you travelling with "Erin", who is she "Ummm, Erin..." (I pointed to Erin and Erin waved at her). No, who IS she "Oh...you mean, who is she to me? Her relationship to me?" (Well, that's complicated, but I just said) "We're just friends". Ok, have a great trip...you two are too stupid to be Mules...
We stopped in Flint, MI to go to Target and also grabbed a SIM card for Erin's iPad. I got a pair of Skinny Jeans at Target...yes people, skinny jeans - you be the judge. Erin says to stop laughing, I look hot.
Then a stop in Lansing, MI for, you guessed it, PF Changs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One more stop on this road trip to a winery, a quicky tasting and we FINALLY arrived in Chicago.
We're off to dinner now at the Signature Lounge at the John Hancock Building - google it, you'll be impressed.
Update you tomorrow! I have my SKYPE hooked up to my iPhone and can get calls to my SKYPE ID if I'm on wireless - its danadeee for my phone.
Day 2
Full, full day today - we had a blast! Welcome Jenna (condo owner) to the updates...I figured you might want to 'keep tabs' on us ;)
Erin and I got up this morning at 7, shuffled some furniture (CAREFULLY) to make room for our yoga mats and did Power Yoga for 40 minutes, grabbed showers and then headed out for the day. We shared Rosemary and Orange French Toast with toasted almond slices at a little cafe that Jenna recommended, aptly named Orange, and both tried, and enjoyed, their signature Orange flavoured coffee.
We were aware that it was the St Patrick's day celebrations, but didn't think about the extra time it might take to get into the down town core. We met Michelle at the bus stop, who was equally perturbed that the FULL bus passed by our stop without stopping...and we HAD to catch that bus down town to get our "El" tour, so we all shared a cab to S. Michigan Ave. We caught our tour with a spare 5 minutes - the tour was a bust...BOW RING!! So Erin feigned sick and we buggered off the tour.
We decided to move the Skydeck up in our days activities and headed over to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), ironically enough, on the "El" (we MAY have passed our tour group and hidden our faces). We got some great photos up on the Ledge (attached). And Jenna has inspired a new tradition, capturing the ever changing style of shoes - just kidding, taking pictures of your feet around the world, or at least throughout the US and Canada.
We headed back to lunch at 1492, which my Mom had recommended as a spot to eat, and she definitely did not steer us wrong. Lunch was perfect and delicious. Erin had Mango Sangria and I had red wine Sangria. We joked that when people asked how we celebrated St Patty, we were in a Spanish Tapas restaurant sipping Sangria...but it was great (and no rowdies). Chicagoans (people from Chicago), like their patron saint of pubs!!
Since we now had our afternoon free, we did what we came to do, we wandered. We figured we had missed the Chicago River being dyed green for the celebrations, but we didn't and go to see it, which was pretty cool. We did a lot of walking today, all through the down town area and then from downtown right over to the Univeristy of Illinois Chicago to see a Roller Derby match, which was a hoot to watch.
Some of the photos attached might include (I haven't attached them yet, so don't know exactly - but these are the highlights)
Chicago Theatre
Union Station
Chicago River
The "El"
The Skydeck
Erin is a total Fujimoto and while I curse her while we're walking, I reap the rewards of inserting her memory card into my MAC and taking some of the glory.
So now, as I write this, I'm enjoying another glass of the lovely wine that Jenna left us and about to eat my leftover PF Changs :) (Yay for PF Changs) Yes, I know that only Sumo Wrestlers eat PF Changs after 10pm, but its SO good!
Will update you all again tomorrow - Lynz, next year Boston will be great, though we learned that we'll have other timing to consider aside from St Patricks Day...we've had some "irritability" issues on this trip! And leave you with our "Quote of the Day" our Roller Derby Chick names - Paine Drops and The Evil Twins!! (FYI - yesterdays quote of the day was "I know what the problem is here...I'm from Canada) (I said this to a clerk at an AT&T store in Flint, Michigan when I was asking to buy a SIM card for the iPad and she thought I was asking for a SIM for the iPod and when I insisted, she insisted they don't sell iPods and they don't have SIM cards...apparently our accent sounds like iPod to them).
Day 3
Another busy day - we lost an hour last night, so had to make up for it.
We got up at 7:30 and did 40 minutes of Power Yoga again, grabbed showers and headed down town to the Chicago Cultural Center to meet our Chicago Greeter, James. The Greeter program is rated the #1 Thing To Do in Chicago on Tripadvisor - it's free and is a local volunteer, who spends 2 - 3 hours showing you around the city based on what you want to see. James met us at 10am at the Cultural Center and gave us a quick tour of the Center itself (I attached a few photos of the domes and some mosaics), then sat down with us and figured out what we wanted to do (or rather, what we didn't already have planned to do!). Since we didn't have Wrigley Field on our agenda we headed up to the aptly named Wrigleyville neighbourhood on the subway.
We walked back to our neighbourhood with James - I think he said it was 4 miles, stopping at a few shops and for lunch. James had initially recommended a Vietnamese restaurant called Simply It...but we got talking about Chicago Style deep dish pizza, which neither Erin or I had ever tried and ended up at Bacino's which was fabulous. We realized quickly why Erin had never had deep dish pizza...lactose intolerance...yikes! See that pizza (the BIG one, she shared that with James...that's right, she ate HALF!!).
We walked from there over to the Conservatory (Botanical Gardens) and the Lincoln Park Zoo, both of which are free and really close to our Condo. Once we were done at the zoo we said goobye to James (5.5 hours later).
Now, after 3 days of walking at least 3 - 4 miles a day, we're taking a break at the condo...playing Words With Friends, relaxing before we go out to Barrio Urban Tacquerria tonight to use our Groupon for dinner!
Quote of the day: "You are SO creative...that's the lawyer in you" (I said to James, who is a lawyer and was moulding pizza dough into shapes at Bacino's, who said "Its an exclamation point!")
Day 4
OH MY GOD...just got home from dinner, and I have to do a backwards day, because dinner was absolutely the highlight, which is impressive with a jammed packed day!
We ate dinner at an Argentinian Steak House that I found on Restaurantica, called Tango Sur. Its North of us about 15 minutes (away from down town). I was a little skeptical, but every time we mentioned it to someone they either said it was fantastic or they had heard good things. James, our greeter from the other day, actually mentioned it to us as a place to go to eat and we said "Oh, we're going there tomorrow"...he was stunned...he said its not a tourist place, its a local place, so he was impressed. Well SO WERE WE...first, the LEAST impressive thing about it was that its BYOB. Yes, you read that right, I said the LEAST impressive...that says a lot when its Erin and I eating there! We had picked up 3 bottles of a Illinois (or maybe we were in Michigan) wine at a winery on the way down, so we took a bottle in my backpack on the bus to the restaurant. (by the way, when we parked the car on Friday when we arrived, we haven't moved it since - we've done bus, train or foot our entire trip).
Erin ordered a beef Empanada and I ordered Provoleta (baked argentinian provolone with roasted red peppers). The Empanada came with a chimichuri sauce (chopped parsley, garlic and oil) that is TO DIE FOR! We put it on everything that followed. Then we ordered the Filet that came with spinach mashed potatoes...sound gross, taste amazing. The Filet was actually 2 filets about the size of a burger from B&L and twice as thick...we each ate one filet a few bites of the potatoes and were raving the whole time, drinking our BYOB...and brought home an entire steak each. Erin thinks I should get into trip planning!
Before that we did the Segway, the Aquarium and the Planetarium, a chicago style hot dog for lunch - they're barely worth mentioning compared to dinner.
Oh, did we mention the dessert??? A vanilla and coconut cake...I don't even like coconut people!!! oh so good.
The quote of the day "I think that's why we get along so well....we do get along, don't we?"
Lynz, we've missed you - so many times we've mentioned how much you should be here!!
Last day tomorrow...leaving by noon.
One for Erin's Dad..
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