As promised, it is time to talk about Holly and I’s little trip to Chicago last month. We had a blast, and I apologize for not posting this sooner. I have been busy at work lately and haven’t had time to write. (I must admit that I am a much better blog reader than I am a blog writer! I need to work on that one). I also discovered this little show called The Voice which has currently taken over my attention, along with the final season of Friday Night Lights, and the return of So You Think You Can Dance. (It is really hard to focus when I am watching reality TV).
As most of you know based on my last post, I recently finished my first marathon and my friend Holly is about to open her own business (it’s a cute idea of selling cupcakes and cowboy boots, check out the webiste at
www.sweetsandspurs.com). To celebrate both of our accomplishments we decided to go to a city that neither of us had been to before but we both really wanted to go to. And Chicago was the winner. We decided to just take a long weekend and it was fabulous. Unfortunately, I didn’t think our trip was going to go well because there was a 70% chance of rain over the weekend and I somehow misplaced (or accidentally threw away) the Cubs tickets I bought for us. Not a good omen for the weekend. Thankfully I was wrong because luck was on our side every step of the way during the trip.
Day 1: Our trip started out on a Friday. We decided to take an early afternoon flight and get into Chicago in time for dinner (well actually rush hour traffic, that one obviously wasn’t 100% well thought out). I am glad we decided on the afternoon flight because I ended up having to take care of some work stuff in the morning and would have been totally stressed if we had to make it to DFW before noon.
We didn’t have a direct flight there and had to stop in St. Louis on the way. Since we booked this trip kind of late, we didn’t have seats right by each other for the flight from DFW to St. Louis. However, as we were walking to our seats the guy behind me noticed that Holly and I were going to be separated and gave up his seat (which was an aisle seat) for my seat, which was by the bathroom and a middle seat (Lucky event #1). So thankfully Holly and I got to sit beside each other for all flights to and from Chicago. Since we don’t live in the same city anymore we must settle for lots of phone conversations that occur at the most random times (since she is starting her own business our schedules are way off, she is either calling me to catch up at 1am when I am asleep or I am calling her on my way to work at 8:30 am and she is asleep). One thing I have loved about our friendship is that we both love to travel, so these little trips we go on have been a great way for us to keep in touch.
We spent the first leg of the plane ride just catching up with each other and what all was going on in our lives. We then changed planes in St. Louis (most boring airport ever, the Oklahoma City airport had more to offer, which is sad) and headed the rest of the way to Chicago. We landed in Chicago a little after 5pm, got our luggage and then waited in line for a cab to take us to our hotel in downtown Chicago. I learned one thing here: the cabs in Chicago are different than the cabs in Dallas. Most Dallas cabs are towncars or vans, so you feel like you are either being taken to your destination by your mom or your grandparents. Chicago cabs are more like cop cars, there is the sliding glass window between the back and front seats and not much leg room for the tall girl in the back. Our cab driver was also not very good and almost got into a wreck no less than 20 times in the 30 minute ride to downtown.
We arrived at our hotel and checked in. Now I must applaud Miss Holly here. She is so good at picking out good hotels. We always brainstorm together and can never make a decision. She always has to end up deciding because I can never make up my mind and am always scared that if we pick a bad hotel it will be my fault (which has been the case before). So for Chicago, we decided on the Hotel Felix, a boutique hotel right off of Michigan Avenue. Now, let me describe what the word boutique meant in this sense. Normally, this word means “vintage and re-done” in my mind, which was true in this case. What was also true was that boutique meant “very small” and “quite cozy”. The hotel had been built in the early 1900s and redone a few years ago. The hallways were very narrow, Holly and I couldn’t walk side by side without bumping into each other. Our room was also very “cozy”. There we no closet, only a drape that covered a bar and 5 hangers. Thank the Lord for the invention of flat screen TVs because that helped save space. You walked into the room and past the bathroom door and “closet” was an area for a queen size bed with approx ½ foot on each side and 1 foot on at the end. Other than the size of the room, we loved everything else about the hotel. The staff were great and the location was exactly what we wanted. We just got to be very close to each other each night.
Here is a picture of the hotel from the outside.
After we checked into the hotel we decided to go to dinner and drinks to celebrate our arrival into the town. My friend Allison (the wonderful author of the Smart and Sassy with Sprinkles blog) recommended us to have dinner at Rockit. Lucky for us it was within walking distance of the hotel. I knew it would be a good place because Allison has fabulous taste. And she definitely lived up to this reputation. She had told us that we would likely have to wait for an hour or so for a table since it was Firday night. However, we walked in and the host said he had one table that was open so we were seated immediately (and in a great spot too, the back corner which was a great place for people watching, our favorite past time, Lucky Event #2). We had a great waitress who recommended some specialty drinks (I forget the names, but mine had cherries, which was all I needed). She also recommended the mac and cheese which was to die for. (Lucky Event #3).
A pic of our fabulous drinks...I ate all of the cherries...
I must also say that our waitress at Rockit was just the beginning of all of the nice people in Chicago. Just about everywhere we went the people were so incredibly nice. The city is huge, but it somehow still has a great small-town Midwestern atmosphere. Very appealing to a girl from Oklahoma.
After our delicious Rockit experience we headed to Pops!, which was a fantastic champagne place close to our hotel. This place was great and had a huge selection of Champagne (we stuck to by the glass as some of the bottles were upwards of $300). When we got to Pops!, we wanted to sit at the bar but it was too crowded, so the hostess put us in the back of the bar. Unfortunately the back of the bar was filled with several couples all staring intently at each other. We sat there for about 5 minutes before we decided we thought we would just leave, but then the hostess came back and told us that two seats had opened up the bar if we wanted to move there….jackpot (and Lucky Event #4). We ended up staying at Pops! for 2 more hours and 3 glasses of champagne. Again lots of good people watching and the Mavs were playing the Thunder, also a good time.
We made it back to the hotel around 2 am ready to crawl into bed and get ready for a day of exploration.
Day 2: Day two of our little adventure was very long and eventful. Even after 3 glasses of champagne we were up and around by 10am, very impressive for us. We left the hotel with our umbrellas in hand (remember the 70% chance of rain I told you about). Lucky for us (Lucky Event #5), it didn’t rain the whole time we were outside, which was the majority of the day. Something was just on our side this trip, that was for sure.
We spent the morning just walking all around downtown. We walked up and down Michigan Avenue and some of the surrounding streets. Michigan Avenue is definitely cool, basically every major department store you can imagine. We didn’t go into that many since Dallas has just about all of the same stores. We did go into the Anthropologie though, where we both scored some delightful finds on sale (Lucky Event #6). Holly found a great shirt to wear to dinner and I found a great trench to wear in case it rained.
We also went into the flagship Macy’s store, which was located just off of Michigan Avenue. This was definitely cool, I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to look too touristy, but the flagship store is 7 stories high and when you walk into the atrium and you see the top of the ceiling it is a hand painted mural. Very cool.
Also along our walk we caught some good pictures of the various skyscrapers and the cool bridges that go over the river. Here are some good pics we took along the way:
We finally walked far enough to make it to Millennium Park, which was another great treat. On the way we stopped at a cute cupcake place (Holly likes to go into any she sees now) and had a tasty delight before walking across the street to the park.
Millennium Park is pretty dang cool. All I could think of when I saw it is how great it would be for a wedding or any kind of outdoor festival. At the entrance to the park there was some great flowers and landscaping. I got a cute picture of the flowers below.
Then we went to the most famous piece of art in the park, the Bean. The Bean is relatively new to the park (it’s been around since 2004), but it has become very popular. It’s just really cool, you can walk underneath it and you see your reflection at every angle. Holly and I tried to get a good picture of our reflection in the Bean. We had to try several ones before we got an acceptable one. Here are a few of our attempts:
Thats me in front of the bean, wasn't quite ready for the picture.
It was very hard to hold the camera just right.
But we finally got it!
After all of these excursions we were pretty hungry, so we thought we would try a Chicago tradition: The deep dish pizza. We were definitely confused on what to pick here. We both asked a couple of friends and everyone had very different and strong opinions about which pizza to try. We ended up going to a place called Lou Malnati’s. My friend Haylee said that we would have to wait to eat at this place so to go at an off-time. We thought we would just take our chances and went at noon. Luckily, when we went we didn’t have to wait for a table at all (Lucky Event #7). We ordered some spinach bread, salads, and two mini deep dish pizzas. The spinach bread was fantastic. The deep dish pizza was also good, although I must admit it wasn’t my favorite. Nothing against Lou’s, but I think I just don’t like the concept of deep dish, it’s just too heavy. But I am glad I tried it, and would still consider it a successful Chicagoan experience.
After our pizza fill it was time to get in touch with our artistic side. We walked back towards Millennium Park and went straight to the Art Institute of Chicago (Lucky Event #8). And I kid you not, the second we got inside at the Art museum it started raining. So we knew we had some time to kill and intended to stay at the museum for the next several hours.
I think this Art Museum was my favorite I have ever been to (granted I have never been to the Louvre or anything, so take my suggestion for what its worth). I am just really into paintings, and there were a ton of fabulous original Monets, van Goghs, and that famous painting from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by Georges Seurat. I was in heaven and could have stared at these paintings for hours. I got really excited when I came across this painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
I grew up to this painting hanging up in my bathroom, I had no idea it was anything famous. So I got real excited when I saw this at the museum and texted my mom to tell her. The funny thing is, she also didn’t know that it was famous and admitted to me that she just picked it up at Hobby Lobby and liked it because she thought the two girls in the paintings were twins. Oh Nance.
Holly really enjoyed the Art Institute as well. I have to admit though she was way more into the weird sculptures, mummies, and hieroglyphics. Not my cup of tea, so I don’t have much commentary there.
We did also venture into the modern wing for just a bit before closing. Let’s just say the modern wing was a little too modern for me. There were things in the modern wing labeled “art” that I was very confused about, especially a pile of empty candy wrappers with some description about how they were some kind of collectors’ item.
One final comment about the museum, even with the maps Holly and I got lost at least 5 times. I don’t know why but some of the exhibits look the same and some floors were only accessible to get to at certain points. All in all it was pretty confusing finding our way around, but it was also a great experience. We left the museum right at closing time to find that the rain had just stopped (Lucky Event #9). We then went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
We were meeting my sorority sister, Allison, and her husband Matt at Scoozi!, an Italian place down the street from us. Allison and Matt moved to Chicago around a year ago to finish their PhD’s (I know they are both major smarty pants). I had not seen Allison since her wedding over a year prior to our Chicago visit, so I was really excited to get to catch up with her.
Holly had never meet Allison before, but they got along just like old friends. We had a great dinner where we talked about college, Chicago, Texas, marriage, kids, blogging, you name it we talked about it. It was also Matt’s birthday so we got to celebrate with some delicious dessert. Here's a pic from dinner (visit Allison's blogs link on the side of my page for more pics as I only took one on my camera).
After dinner Allison and Matt took us to meet up with some of their friends in a different area of town at a bar called Fountainhead. Holly and I definitely had fun there because this place was definitely a dive bar, and as much as I love nice touristy places it was nice to go somewhere where I knew that everyone in the bar was actually from Chicago. We had a great time meeting new friends and sharing stories. When it was time to go Holly and I just thought we would hail a cab, but Allison insisted we try the train to get home. The red line went right back to our hotel she said. Now, I had no intention of trying the train, but since she insisted, Holly and I decided to go for it. Besides the fact that the red line shut down for the night at one of the stops we were at and we had to cab the rest of the way home, the train was not a bad experience. But, I don’t think I would have checked it out had Allison not said something. Public transit is just not something you do in Dallas, so I needed to have some true Chicago residents set me straight!
We made it home safely and once again went straight to bed for another day filled of activities. Here is a picture of us on the train (notice my new trench and Holly's new shirt is hidden under her cute trench).
Day 3: Day three was an extra special day during our visit. This day was pretty action packed. Once again we were up and at it around 10am (and after a night of cocktails!). This time we headed over to the John Hancock Observatory. Originally, I had wanted to go to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), but Allison and Matt had told us to go to the John Hancock as it had better views of the city. So off we went.
Once there we purchased our tickets and rode up to the 96th floor where we received headphones and instructional gadgets for our “guided tour” of Chicago. Now here’s where it gets good. I was looking forward to the tour because Allison had informed me that the narrator was none other than David Schwimmer (aka Ross from “Friends”). If you know me, you know that I get really excited anytime I can see (or hear) and old “Friends” character every now and then. Ross was very engaging as the personal tour guide; we literally had a 360 degree view of the city, and as you walked each direction Ross explained to you what you were looking at and the historical significance. Here are some pics:
Such a pretty skyline!
The coastline!!
The Navy Pier!!
Trump's Tower
The world's first ferris wheel!
Most beneficial thing I learned on my guided audio tour: Where Chicago got the name “The Wiindy City”. I had actually made a comment to Holly about how it was so much windier in Oklahoma than here in Chicago so I was really confused about why it was nicknamed the Windy City. Well, low and behold, the Windy City actually referred to dirty politicians back in the 20s or 30s, who knew? I did also learn that Chicago was where the Ferris Wheel was invented and it was made to compete with the Eifel Tower in Paris. In fact, the whole city was developed to be like cities in Europe. I had no idea. (Growing up with a dad for a football coach, I kind of missed out on educational traveling trips: no Washington DC or battlefield re-enactments here. Therefore, I actually get excited to learn random historical facts). I digress.
After our educational experience at John Hancock, we decided to catch the train (per Allison and Matt’s recommendation) and head over to Wrigley Field. We weren’t quite the pros Allison and Matt were in navigating the train stations. However, we did make it to a station at the right time (that is the key, and with trains departing every 15 minutes or so it stinks to barely miss one), thanks to the iPhone. What did I do without this fabulous invention? We hopped on the redline in our cubs attire and looked like true Chicagoans. After a short ride we ended up at Wrigley Field. I was super excited as it is one of the oldest baseball fields in the country. One thing I immediately learned was that the field is very small (or “boutique” if you will). The area around the stadium, “Wrigleyville” was a super fun area, with lots of people roaming around. We decided to grab some lunch and go inside….as long as they would re-issue our tickets (remember how I threw them away….). I walk up to the counter and a very nice gentleman that could have been my grandfather asked for my driver’s license and simply reprinted my tickets. Jackpot, no questions asked and I didn’t have to explain how I threw them away. I was not looking forward to defending myself there (Lucky Event #10).
Once inside the stadium I realized just exactly how small it actually was. There were no big screens at all, no bathrooms on the top level, and the scoreboard was a manual board (a guy was inside manually updated all of the MLB scores from across the country). We found our seats and realized that we were in the shade, and it was only about 56 degrees. Now while that is not cold and it was sunny outside, it was just weird. I am used to being at Ranger games where I am sweating before I even sit down. Here, I was in jeans, a cubs shirt, and a jacket and was feeling really chilly. After about ½ an inning Holly and I decided that we really couldn’t take anymore of the cold. We had pretty good seats on the first baseline, and we could see that in the outfield it was sunny and the spectators didn’t appear to be cold like us. Since the stadium is so small, the outfield seats actually looked really appealing. So we bee-lined it for the gate to get into the outfield, but of course were stopped by the stadium guard who wanted to see our tickets (apparently the outfield seats are actually more expensive, have no idea why). Sadly, we had to admit that we didn’t have outfield tickets but were just cold. The lady looked at us like “Are you serious?”. She was very nice and told us we could go upgrade our tickets, which was fine with us. Right as she said this another guard came down the steps and she explained what we wanted to do and asked the other lady to assist us. Well, right at this time the other lady pulled out two tickets in the outfield that “weren’t being used” and offered to give them to us, free of charge (Lucky Event #11). We took our new friend up on the offer and headed to our new seats.
What a treat! It was about 10 degrees warmer in the sun, not as many people around, we were still close to the game, and I got a great view of the outfielders’ behinds in their form fitting baseball pants. I wasn’t going anywhere for the next three hours.
The game itself wasn’t that exciting (scoreless for Chicago, and only two runs scored by the Reds), but we stayed the whole time and did some good Google research while we watched the game. Things we learned:
#1 – The field was used during the filming of “A League of Their Own” one of my absolute favorite movies. My sister and I used to act it out all the time, and Tom Hanks is priceless as Jimmy Dugan.
#2 – The stadium was one of two stadiums that still has the manual scoreboard. I think Holly said that the other was the old Yankee stadium, but don’t quote me on that, it might be Fenway..
#3 – If you have ever been to Chicago, then you know that the field is in the middle of a city neighborhood. Well, once inside the stadium, I noticed that on the top of the buildings across the street from the ballpark were bleachers. My dad had told me to look out for the bleacher creatures. I realized this is what he meant. The owners of these buildings added stadium seating to the top of the building and then have watch parties. Most of the buildings looked like tailgates on the bottom floors with beer and food and then at the top everyone was sitting in the bleachers just like they had purchased a ticket to the real game. Each building had a different name…my favorite was “Beyond the Ivy”, referring to the Ivy wall that is the back wall of the field. Per our Google research we learned that this “extra” bleacher seating was a huge uproar when it sprouted up in the early 2000s. Because, as you can imagine, the money paid for those tickets wasn’t going back to the ballpark. So, the ballpark started doing things to block the view from the bleacher creatures. Apparently they got it figured out now though as there were no screens up to block the bleacher creatures from watching the game.
Here are some great shots from the game. And I did try the Chicago dog and I have to say, not that impressed. Something about pickles and mustard and relish, just too much going on at once.
Shot of the Wrigley Field Sign.
Let's Play Ball!! (Our original seats)
The Original Scoreboard
Holly and I in our Cubs shirts.
Me and my Chicago dog.
Our new seats in the outfield.
Beyond the Ivy.
After the game was over, we walked around the stadium again for a bit and joined into some trash can drumming/dancing by locals in the area. To be specific, there was a group of 4 guys all under the age of 15 playing the drums on trash cans. I have only one word for this performance: Awesome. It was so freaking cool, we watched them for about 15-20 minutes….I mean it was like watching the movie Drumline with only three members. Very eventful. See below:
As we were leaving we decided to get one picture of us in front of the Wrigley Field sign. We slowly found out that this was near impossible. We couldn’t find anyone to take our picture. There was one other family wanting their picture taken. The best option in their opinion: a homeless man walking around with a cigarette, money cup, and a hat with the tag still on it (the area around the field isn’t the classiest and there were several homeless people who “needed tickets” before the game started). So, Holly and I are standing there thinking who are we going to ask to take our picture and the next thing you know we see the guy with the tag still on his hat on the ground taking a picture of this family that we were going to ask to take our picture. We weighed the options and opted to just go with the self portraits we had taken earlier at the game.
After the eventful experience in Wrigleyville we caught the Redline (we were pros by this point) and headed back to downtown. We had one more thing on our agenda before sunset….the famous Navy Pier. While we were both tired, we wanted to check this out. We had seen the Pier on our Hancock tour and hadn’t done anything on the water yet (the one thing I wish we would have done was a boat tour, but we simply didn’t have time). So, we headed over to the Navy Pier. Since it was chilly and near sunset it wasn’t very crowded, but I could tell that this place is probably packed all summer long. We walked the pier and got some great skyline pictures before riding the Ferris Wheel. Now, while I was excited to ride the first ever Ferris Wheel, it was the same as any other Ferris Wheel ride. And I was getting hungry and cold so one trip around was enough for me. It didn’t help that I had just gotten a hot chocolate that the guy made me throw away because no drinks were allowed on the ride. Not fair.
Some pics taken from the pier:
A close-up of the Ferris Wheel.
The Chicago Skyline.
So pretty from the Pier.
Holly and I on the Ferris Wheel.
Navy Pier Sign.
Finally, after a very long day, we headed back to the hotel Felix. We were pretty tired from being out and about all day, but with it being our last night we wanted to go somewhere super fun for dinner. We asked the cute guy at the front desk and he recommended Sushi Samba, a little Sushi place within walking distance. It was fabulous. It had a great atmosphere, great drinks, and Holly and I both tried adventurous rolls.
We wanted to top off our last night in Chicago with a late night bar experience. The waiter recommended Bull and Bear (which I didn’t get the name of at first and then felt like an idiot), which was down the street. Let’s just say this bar was very interesting. I felt like I was at a popular chic college bar, but everyone was almost 40 years old. It was definitely a “be and be seen” kind of place. And for two tired girls from Oklahoma in trench coats, we didn’t last long. So we took our old lady selves back home and to bed.
Day 4: Sadly, this was our last day in the city. Our flight left at 2pm, so we really didn’t have much time for anything. Which was good because there was only two things left on our list of to-dos: Yolk and Popcorn. Yolk is a fabulous Brunch place that both Allison and my friend Haylee recommended, and it was delicious. Unfortunately, Holly doesn’t love brunch like me. I could eat it every day, in the morning, lunchtime, or for dinner. She did humor me though and ordered pancakes.
After Yolk, we were on a mission: to buy some Garrett’s popcorn. This popcorn is apparently known nationwide. There is a special mix called the Chicago mix, which is a combination of the cheddar popcorn and the caramel popcorn. Holly was not even about to try this combination, but I couldn’t get enough of it. At first I just wanted one or the other, but when in Rome…so I jumped the bandwagon and got a bag of the Chicago mix. It made for a great plane ride home snack.
We made it to the airport where Holly wanted to try deep dish one more time. We found a place and Holly got herself a deep dish cheese, and said Round 2 was better than Round 1. I took her word on that as I was still on my popcorn high.
We made it back to Dallas around 5pm. We were both sad to be home after exploring such a fantastic city.
A few take-a-ways:
1) The people of Chicago were amazing
2) Wrigley Field is spectacular
3) The deep-dish and Chicago dog are slightly over-rated
4) The city is beautiful
5) The food is amazing
6) We would both move there tomorrow if the right opportunity existed and we could convince some other friends or family members to come as well
So there you have it, another successful journey for the two of us. As I am writing this I am packing for another trip: this time to Florida with my parents and some other family friends. Should be an exciting trip, will definitely be writing about that one later.
Until then, Ciao for now!
