Chicago

6 hours later, we arrived in Chicago and checked into the Palmer house Hilton. It had one of the fanciest lobbys we have ever seen! Unfortunately we were put
in a smoking room due to the packed hotel full of marathon runners and vacationers for the 3 day weekend. The room was one of the smelliest, smallest room I've ever been in. We were promised a room change on Sunday luckily.

We went for a short swim in the hotel pool which had way too many kiddies.

Fast forward to 3 hours later, we were waiting on a table at Lou Melnatis, voted one of Chicago's best rated pizza. This place was packed, but we ate samples and ordered the pizza ready in 30 minutes. 10 minutes after being served our individual deep dish butter crust pizzas, we were stuffed! This pizza definitely gets 5 stars. And a quick side note, this place is so popular that it ships the pizza across the country at $17 per pizza, genious idea if you ask me!

Steve couldn't resist checking out English as our next stop. This bar had some British beers on tap and some indie tunes playing, Steve was definitely in his element. Though we did head to House of Blues, we agreed we were a little late to enjoy the full show, so we headed back to the hotel for some zzz's.

Sunday was marathon day, but sadly me and Steve slept too late to start the early morning run, so we think maybe next year. The day did have us walking all around the city for 5 hours.

We started at Millenium park which had amazing architecture. In the middle of the park there were these huge flat fountains with digital faces on them which were really unique. We also checked out the nextfest in the park which had some futuristic exhibits. There was a plastic mold being put in athletic gear to stop any sort of injuries, and freaky human like robots that could rebuild themselves if broken into pieces.

Afterwards, we walked alongside lake Michigan to the navy pier. We had to have a quick ride on the McDonalds red caged Ferris wheel which looked like it was built in the 60's. Onward as we strolled to the beach. This beach has a bustling city right beside it and loads of people were swimming, quite unusual but so convenient for city folk!

A little more walking and 96 stories high later, we plopped down at the bar of the John Hancock building and had some drinks to enjoy the fantastic views. We were told a numerous amount of times to skip paying to go to the observation deck on the Sears tower and go up to the bar of the John Hancock. Well worth it, the views speak for themselves.

On the walk back to the hotel we needed a snack at Garrets popcorn. This place has a huge line out the door constantly, it's that popular! We ordered the mix bag of caramel and butter popcorn and it was perfect. The flavors together are so good and a must have!

Back in our hotel, we mentioned our dissappointment in our room and they upgraded us to the diamond floor and gave us $50 toward hotel services. Our new room was way more modern! We went and ate in the hotel restaurant. Steve ordered mussels, chicken and I had salad and salmon. For dessert we each got the biggest creme brule we have ever seen. It was a delight!

For our last night in Chicago we wanted to see a show at the comedy club Second City, which is where many Saturday night live stars got their starts but it was booked solid! And we wanted to see the play Wicked but there were no shows that night. So instead we went to see Nick and Norah, we both rated it a cute feel good movie.I'll also quickly mention that we had the most horrible cab ride, I was clenched to my seat as I didn't think we'd make it out alive. Lesson is never take a taxi again!

After having packed so much into 1 day, our heads hit the pillow and we zonked out. Our next stop was to be more spontaneous!We loved Chicago and were so impressed by how friendly the people were and lucked out with hot weather and sunny skies!