25th—
After Sonia got home from work at 5, we pretty much left right away! To avoid 94 traffic, I took us a 'back' way... which also had traffic. :P The drive was great, though! I forget how beautiful the Wisconsin landscape is... I imagine it's even more gorgeous in the Fall. Anyway, it got dark around 9, and we only stopped once for gas and to put the convertible top down. All the road construction during the day, even though 90% had no workers at this time of night, still had 'one lane closed', which caused a bit of traffic on the way down and added an extra 45 minutes to our overall drive. Around 10:30-ish, I noticed the car ahead of me, along with the semi, swerve out of the way of something; luckily I was paying attention, cause I had to swerve onto the shoulder because there was this HUGE metal staircase or something in the middle of the road. Scared the shit out of us, especially sneaking up in the dark... thank god we didn't hit it... that would have been a sucky start to our vacation!
The rest of the drive went well, until we hit the tollway. I'm glad it's a good way to upkeep the roads, but it's SUPER annoying to have to slow down and stop, then speed back up again and lose your spot on the road. By the time we got near the airport, there was new pavement going in and they had the tollway down to ONE lane! It's Thursday night at midnight, you figure there wouldn't be many people around, but nope... it was like rush hour. Crazy!
26th—
So finally we check-in to the DoubleTree Hilton hotel (read my full hotel review here) around 12:45am. We're both crazy-loopy tired and Sonia was fighting off a cold, so we checked-in, got our free cookie (which was yum!) and went to bed. The hotel parking was pretty expensive, but I didn't care at that point... I didn't want to deal with the car at all that weekend.
So those who know me well, know I have trouble sleeping... especially in a different bed/location. I figured I'd be fine for three nights, using the hotel pillows and sheets... long-story-short, shoulda brought my pillow at the very least!!! I was up until 4am because I couldn't get comfortable and the a/c fan kept screeching every five minutes ALL night. In my Nyquil haze, I didn't even think to call the desk about it...
I finally shut it off at 8am and slept a couple more hours... so I ended up getting about 6 hours of sleep total, but not delicious REM sleep! :(
We both agreed on the sleeping-in that day since we knew we would arrive late. After I complained about my noisy a/c fan to the front desk, we ventured a block to Yolk for breakfast at noon. This place was AMAZING!!! Super cute interior/space and the most delicious smoked salmon eggs benedict I've ever had. After that, we decided to explore the pier and lake There was a cute little beach nearby and a park with a bunch of art all over. We got to the pier and decided to do the ferris wheel so we could get a look at the cityscape.
Again, HUGE city!!! I couldn't fit it all in one picture... lol. After the ferris wheel I got some Dippin' Dots (noms!) and we arrived just in time for our boat tour via the Anita Dee. It was HOT out, and I knew I was getting sunburned, but the boat provided a nice breeze and some shade. :)
Sonia made nice with the boat tour guide, Zach, and after we asked how the city view is at night from the boat, he promised us a free drink if we came back. After walking the pier a bit more we walked to the John Hancock building to get a nice view from the observation deck. Did I mention... HUGE city!!! And the view from the women's bathroom was epic. :D
[And this is only the south view of the city!]
After sightseeing from 98 floors up, went back to the hotel to shower/change/rest. At 7pm, right before I left my room, I noticed the a/c fan was STILL screechy! I complained to the front desk again and they had no idea if anyone had been up to fix it or not. They offered me to just switch rooms and I said yup. So after throwing my crap into the room right across the hall — and with a much better view! [below] — we walked back to the pier for dinner.
Again, VERY good food! Then we boarded the Anita Dee again, and reminded Zach of our free drinks... he laughed and complied. :) I had to sit in the middle of the boat, though, cause there were SPIDERS all over since the sun had gone down. They were icks! And some dumpy, goober MN family was bugging Zach about the kids needing to wear life-jackets while on the boat, because "it's the law in MN". He explained to them that if we did use life-jackets, the harbor patrol would prevent the boat from moving... yes, lady, you need life-jackets on this HUGE yacht... cripes.
Anyway, Sonia made more nice with Zach and he offered us to stay on the boat until they were all done working, and go out and party with them after! We said hell yes, and met some super nice, interesting people. Apparently all the pier workers go drink at this one bar every night after their shifts. But by now it's midnight and I'm barely standing after a whole day of walking and my shitty sleep. I try to stay lucid as long as possible, and with alcohol in my system, which makes me even more sleepy... so I give up around 1am and taxi back to the hotel.
27th—
I slept slightly better that night, with Nyquil, but not the best 8 hours I could have used. Since we stayed out late, we grabbed breakfast at the bagel place in the hotel and ate/sat/rested by the pool for awhile. I made the observation that only mid-westerners would sit by the pool on the cloudy, 70-degree day... :)
Once we were refreshed, we walked around the city and explored. I can see how Chicago would be a shoppers dream... TONS of stores all over, but also very touristy. We splurged on a horse carriage ride and then visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. Then we walked the Magnificent Mile and checked out the river. During our walk, we found our 'fancy' dinner place to come back to, which was one of the 'must do' on the agenda.
After resting for an hour, we both got dressed-up and taxi'ed to the restaurant. Sonia had her steak with wine and I had the 8 oz. lobster tail, and OH MY GAWD our food was INCREDIBLE!!! We shared calamari, mushrooms and twice-baked potato with cheese... ugh, I can still remember how amazing it all was and how full we were after! So about 9pm, we taxi'ed back to our hotel and went into food-coma's in our rooms. The plan was to go out again, but by 11, I was completely dead. Sonia went out for a chill evening with Zach, which I'm glad cause I felt bad for being so tired and not being able to go out and enjoy the night-life more! :P
So after packing and watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and The Rock, I passed out via Nyquil.
28th—
By now I had gotten used to the bed/sheets/pillows and slept pretty well. We had our brunch place picked out, so I called ahead to make sure we didn't need a reservation. After checking out at noon, we drove about 15 minutes north to this cute little cafe. The timing/food on our entire trip had worked out SO well (minus my hotel experience), except at this last place. Our waitress had forgotten to put our order in so we didn't end up getting back on the freeway until 2pm. Also, my eggs weren't fully cooked and had three huge pieces of shell in them, one of which I ate accidentally, so that made for a blah tummy on the ride home.
Traffic was MUCH better once we got out of the city. We stopped only once and made it home at 7pm. Minneapolis looked so tiny compared to Chicago! But it made me smile cause I love our city and am glad it's not huge, cause there'd be tourists all over. :P
Overall, great trip! We definitely needed more time to explore... we were only in the north part of downtown the whole time. We never saw any L stops, either, even though it felt like we walked forever! :)
