When We Were in Chicago... a down & dirty recap

A few things you should know about how I vacation & how I recap vacations:

1. When I come to your town, I want to see all the tourist things. Because I am a tourist. 

2. Vacation is not a place where we cheap out. We save up so we can do all the things, eat where we want, and have the luxury of convenience. I cheap out on hotel rooms though and always choose a mid-range place because when we do a quick trip, we're barely in there. 

3. If we go to a city over a weekend, we pack as much in as possible and sacrifice sleep and lounging to do so. Beaches and cruises are for relaxing, these trips are for seeing and doing. I love creating ridiculous itineraries and we enjoy being on the go. My itineraries always have some sway and the ability to move shit around on the fly because you always have to do that when you travel. The trick is to get a flow going so you get a lot in without feeling like you're on a mission. 

4. Apologies on the food shots - they're always taken with an iPhone and lots of these places were dim. MFD already has a fit about me taking pics of all food so I'm not going to prolong the process by getting the lighting right. If you don't give a shit about food or restaurants, skip over the paragraphs before the food collages.
5. If we're friends on FB, you know a lot of this because MFD checks in everywhere as it gives him great joy.
6. I don't split trip recaps because I like to keep all the information in one spot, so it's long. 

Time/travel parameters: we flew Frontier Airlines from Trenton to Midway on Saturday night, arriving in Chicago at 6:30 p.m. We flew out of Midway at 7:59 p.m. Tuesday night and arrived home at midnight. We stayed at Hyatt Place River North and did breakfast at the hotel daily. We basically arrived, dumped our bags, and hit the streets. 

Saturday

Strolling the Chicago Riverwalk - the skyline is magnificent at night

Chicago Jazz Festival in Millennium Park - specifically Kevin Eubanks from The Tonight Show

The Skyline -and us - reflected in the Bean

We took an 11:30 reservation at The Girl and the Goat in the West Loop, owned by Stephanie Izard from Top Chef. That time is all they had more than a month and a half out. I liked it a lot - the atmosphere was great, I enjoyed seeing the open kitchen, the food was mostly a hit, and the service was energetic and friendly despite the hour. MFD and I shared everything: goat cheese & sweet corn dumplings (excellent, not pictured), hamachi crudo (crisp pork belly, not pictured - just meh, should've gotten the pig face), wood fired scallops (surprisingly awesome, recommended by the waiter, first pic on the bottom left), egg salad oysters (top middle photo, totally amazing). For dessert MFD has some regrettable bittersweet chocolate thing that sucked. I had peaches and blueberry buckle with goat cheese gelato. GIRL, you don't even know. You don't even know!! The coffee was excellent. Yes, we drank it at midnight because we are fools. 

Sunday

Rise and shine bitches! Up and out by 7:30 to walk down to Milton Olive Park via the Ohio Beach entry. What a glorious view of the city. So quiet and really awesome. 

Gangster Tour, because who doesn't like a little cheese with their vacation? It was pretty interesting, and we did drive through most Chicago neighborhoods which gave us an idea of the places we weren't going to be visiting. 

We originally planned to go to the Art Institute or Field Museum in the afternoon, but it was MFD's birthday weekend and he wanted to swim. So weird to have this big ocean-looking lake in the middle of a large city. I did not want to swim so I dipped my toes in, read and people watched. p.s. - post swimming is the only time you'll see MFD's hair not perfect. 

Dinner at Shaw's Crab House. We both loved the 1940s-ish atmosphere and the seafood was excellent. The service was top notch. This key lime pie is the best key lime pie I've ever had, including numerous pies in Key West itself. 

Jazz at Andy's Jazz

Monday - MFD's Birthday and Labor Day

Since it was Labor Day, we got to walk really slowly on the sidewalks looking up at the buildings in the central business district and take pics in the middle of the street without locals getting pissed off at us for slowing their roll. The city felt deserted and it was awesome.

Sears Tower Skydeck. What a trip! I did much better than I thought I'd do out on the ledges and MFD did worse. We went on an overcast day with some fog. It rained while we were up there and even with all that, the views and experience were really impressive. I bought fast pass tickets prior to arrival which took our wait time from an hour and a half to 20 minutes to get to the 103rd floor.

Lunch at Lou Malnati's. I thought I was not a fan of deep dish pizza. I was wrong. We got the Malnati Chicago Classic and it was delicious. I also loved the Green Line beer brewed by Goose Island in Chicago.

I had an UBER credit (sign up and use promo code ubersmd to get a $30 credit towards your first ride) so we jumped in one to get to Wrigley Field since we were already running late. We were initially supposed to take the Red Line, but we were short on time and it was a nice quick ride up the Gold Coast into Wrigleyville. What a cool experience - you walk in off the street and there you are! We also walked around the stadium when we left, which was pretty cool as well seeing all the stuff on the outside walls, checking out the places for roof top viewing, and getting a load of people tailgating outside and on the sidewalk.

MFD had a Chicago style hotdog at Wrigley. I had mine at the airport. This is my kind of hotdog.

People we saw at both the Skydeck and Wrigley...these three, dressed as Cameron, Sloane, and Ferris. How fucking amazing is this? MFD got their photo at the Skydeck and I spied Cameron & Ferris with the zoom at Wrigley. MFD actually went down to where they were sitting to say hello to them again because of course...Mayor.

MFD's birthday dinner at David Burke's Primehouse in The James Hotel. Prices were ridiculous but YOLO, birthday. The steaks were unbelievable. MFD had the 55 day aged and it melted in your mouth. I thought the atmosphere was just okay. My steak, wine, and coffee gelato were excellent though. I was unable to get reservations at Gibsons, which was our first choice.

MFD used LYFT to get a car to take us to The Second City. You guys, this was awesome. We saw The Best of The Second City on the mainstage. It was hilarious and for $30 each we saw over 2.5 hours of comedy. I loved every second of it. Also hilarious: when MFD had a mouth full of water and it shot out in an actual spit take because he could not hold back the laughter.

Tuesday
We packed up and had the hotel hold our bags while we took off for the Wendella Lake & River Boat Tour. Totally fucking awesome. We went out onto Lake Michigan (the photo you see below with the water coming through is the lock opening up from the Chicago River to let the boat out - the lake is about two feet higher than the river), learned about all the buildings, then back onto the river to do the same. We loved this. I could fill a blog post just with photos taken on this tour, and they don't fit well into collages which sucks.

In a Philly takes Chicago move, we met your friend and mine Marla from Luck Fupus and her husband Steve for lunch at The Purple Pig. We sat outside and had a nice long lunch.

We ordered a bunch of plates to share, and I would go back every day until I could try everything on the menu. Really a phenomenal experience. Some dishes we sampled include calamari with fregula, radishes, cucumbers & pistachios; the best Greek salad I've ever had; chorizo stuffed olives; some type of foie grass; chocolate goat cheese and a few other cheeses; milk braised pork shoulder with mashed potatoes; stuffed squid; soft serve ice cream with espresso poured over it. I can't remember the rest. The food was my favorite on the trip. Everything was excellent and it was a bonus to share the meal with friends from home!

We checked out the rocks in the face of the Tribune Tower, which was awesome. We glimpsed Bill Rancic and while Marla, Steve & I were sitting in the shade MFD got his photo taken with him. Of course we missed that. Why not. We strolled down to see The Bean in the sunlight and also to check out the Crowd Fountains.

MFD and I hopped into a cab and Marla & Steve went on to enjoy their first day in Chicago as we wrapped up our last. MFD got an Italian beef sandwich and we split a freaking donut ice cream sandwich from Firecakes Donuts. You guys, is this real life? How do my pants still fit? It was awesome.

We took the Orange Line to Midway during rush hour - not fun. MFD also tried to take an elevator up to the platform, which opened to reveal a big puddle of stinky hot pee. Silly MFD, always avoid elevators at public transportation stations.

What a phenomenal city - very clean, very friendly to tourists in that it's easy to get around and the people are pretty nice. It's also beautiful, walkable, has a wonderful food scene, and shows its face really well. We loved the feel of the city and if the winters weren't so ridiculous I think I'd be arguing with MFD to stay here instead of moving there. Thanks to Steph at Not Entirely Perfect for her Chicago smarts, especially this map/post, and help with hotel locations and which streets to avoid at night. We missed meeting up due to her move and both of our schedules but will do so next time!

Chicago, I think you're the favorite city of all the cities I've visited.

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