Chicago!

[jethrien]

For our 10th wedding anniversary, I wanted to take a trip. I've never been to Chicago (except for a couple of hours during an unexpectedly long layover, which doesn't count) and we have several friends who live there, so long weekend for us!


Because I always overplan things, we did a lot of things. This should surprise nobody.

- Chicago Architectural Foundation River Cruise. Awesome!
- Topolobampo tasting menu. Seriously, seriously awesome.
- Needing to buy scarves and hats and gloves. Not awesome, but grateful Old Navy opens at 9.
- Big Bus bus tour. Meh. We've been on these in other cities and they were better. Our main guide was pretty lame.
- Playing Rock Band with friends (Edgehopper and A, A and S). Lots of fun.
- Food walking tour of Gold Coast and Old Town. Tasty but odd. Chicago deep dish pizza is not pizza but I will grant them the title of pizza pie. The compulsion to put a salad on top of a hot dog is kind of inexplicable, though.
- Karaoke: generally fun, but we were very underwhelmed by the karaoke scene in Chicago.
- Being in town when the Cubs won the pennant for the first time in forever: uneventful because we carefully avoided being in parts of town that might have a problem.
- Seeing more friends M and A (clearly we have too many A friends) for brunch. Very nice.
- Food walking tour of Chinatown. Very delicious.

Flights: not so fun. On the way out, they rescheduled us from a 9am direct flight to an 8:15am connection through Boston. And didn't notify us. I discovered it at 6:15 while Chuckro was in the shower and then there was the frantic leaping out the door fifteen minutes later. On the way back, I couldn't check in early because of "technical difficulties". We got stuck in a massive traffic jam and got to the airport 45 minutes later than planned...to get boarding passes that said we couldn't be assigned seats until we got to the gate, and find a security line that stretched the full length of the terminal. I was seriously convinced we were going to miss that flight. But somehow we made it to the gate 15 minutes before boarding and they casually handed us tickets without incident. The seats were even together. It felt like a miracle.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

That sounds great. If I'd known you were going to Chicago I'd have recommended a bus tour with a bit more panache, aka the one my friend Adam runs, which is apparently delightful, but also haunted.

I'm so glad you had a great time!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

And if I'd known, I would have said "I'll come into the city and meet you!" We're about an hour from downtown (an hour and a half if you take the commuter rail).

Glad you had fun!

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid we were already rather overscheduled for what was ostensibly an anniversary trip. Another time, I hope.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add, happy anniversary too. :-D

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

To be fair to the As, we have brunch with M and E, and their children N and A.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

When I visited Chicago years ago, I went in January (great planning, right?). I took a great architecture walking tour, and the Art Institute had some awesome stuff. It's a good town. And those heat lamps they have on the L platforms were amaaaaazing. :-P