Chicago

A few months ago we saw some good fares for flights between Boston and Chicago.  For a couple of years now we have been saying that we should take advantage of these fares and get away for a long weekend here and there but for various reasons we never did.  Since our trip to Japan though, we have both achieved higher status with the airline which doesn’t mean much except that the flying experience is a little better now.  We get the special check in line, special security line, we get to board first, we get the “choice” coach sets (like exit rows and the first couple of rows of coach) for free, and we get free checked bags.  So off to Chicago we went.  Our flight left Boston on a Friday morning around 10.  Since Chris is off every other Friday, this worked out pretty well.  Our plans had us returning on Monday a little after noon.  For some reason we were not able to perform this simple math.  We kept thinking we would be gone for 4 days and we were making a big deal about leaving the cats alone for so long.  The longest they had been alone was 3 days so we left them an extra litter box, tons of extra water and a few extra bowls of food.  It wasn’t until Sunday that we realized that we would only be gone for 3 days, not 4.  Rather than pay to park at the airport or bother someone to drop us off we used one of our free days from the rental car company to get a car close to home and drop it off at the airport the following day.  We would do the same, but in reverse, when we returned home.

When we bought our tickets a few months ago we figured 10 AM would be a very good time to go to the airport.  It would be later in the morning and the commuter rush would be over.  We were half right.  We still had commuter traffic heading into the city but the airport was not very busy at all.  We had requested an upgrade using our 500-mile upgrades but it didn’t clear so we were stuck in coach.  Another perk of being an “elite” member on the airlines is that for every 10K miles you fly they give you 4 – 500 mile upgrades meaning if your flight is 0-500 miles you use one of these upgrades to upgrade your seat…501-1000 miles you use 2, etc.  We arrived in Chicago a little after 1, grabbed our duffel bag which we had checked and made our way to the subway.  We did not rent a car for two reasons: we would be staying downtown and the hotel charged $55 per day to park and most of our exploring would be in the downtown area so public transportation would do just fine.  The subway is tremendously cheaper from the airport to downtown than a taxi and it takes about the same time. ($5 vs. $40-$60).  We bought a 3 day pass for $20 each offering us unlimited rides on the subway and bus and we were off.  After about a 40 minute ride we found ourselves in our hotel, another Marriott (where once again, thanks to Japan we had earned “elite” status which entitled us to all kinds of goodies).  Our room was on the concierge floor but didn’t have much of a view except of another building.  This was ok because we planned on exploring the city a bit and not spending much time in our room.

We were quite hungry after half a day of travelling so we walked down the street to a highly recommended (by our Roadfood book) German restaurant.  We were so hungry that we forgot to take pictures of the outside of the place but we did enjoy some nice German food including an appetizer of mini brats and knockwurst and a meal of Jager schnitzel and Rahm Schnitzel.  We also learned that they have Chicago’s first issued liquor license. 

After our late lunch we jumped on the train for a short, maybe 8-10 block ride to Macy’s.  We headed there for a couple of reasons: they have two giant clocks outside the building that each weigh about 7 tons; a fountain inside that was part of the original construction in 1892 but was scrapped from the plans when they decided that it would not fit in with the rest of the design. In 1992 when they renovated the building they found the original plans and decided to include the fountain as it had been originally planned over 100 years before.  They also have a vaulted ceiling made from 1.6 million pieces of Tiffany glass.  The ceiling is actually about 9 floors up but we were able to get up close to it and get some good pictures of this impressive sight.  After Macy’s we kind of walked around a little more downtown, bought some cupcakes from a specialty cupcake bakery called Magnolia’s Cupcakes and headed back for the hotel to settle in for the night.

close up shot of the glass

The next day, after breakfast, we headed to Cloud Gate, which is a public sculpture located in one of the city parks.  Our trip there was certainly eventful.  As it turned out the transit authority picked our weekend to do some major repairs on one of the bridges that carries the subway tracks over the Chicago River, which resulted in extremely limited service with gaps filled in with shuttle busses and shuttle trains.  So the 5 minute train ride turned into a 40 minute ordeal.  We learned that for the destination, on this day, it would have been quicker to walk.  Even the locals were frustrated and confused by the disruption, which it appears they advertised well in advance.  Cloud Gate is also referred to as The Bean due to its bean like shape.  The sculpture is made of steel plates welded together and it appears to have no seams.  The surface is mirror like and the shape gives unusual perspectives of the city around you.

After the Bean we headed to a really cool pair of fountains called Crown Fountain, which is located within the same park as the Bean.  The fountains are quite tall, maybe 5 stories high, and they face each other.  They use LEDs to display images of people, so from a distance they appear to be giant tv screens with images of people on them.  The people are actually residents of Chicago, which makes it a popular spot for locals in the summer.  Also in the summer, water shoots out of the people’s mouths, but in the winter we had none of that.

We then walked a few more blocks north to find a “virtual” geocache. We have probably explained these here before but virtual caches are unlike normal geocaches where you find a container, but instead they take you to something interesting with unique instructions such as taking a picture of the location in order to “find” the cache.  This particular one took us to the Tribune Building in Chicago.  What made this building unique was all around the building on the bottom floor are various rocks and bricks from historically important sights from around the world.  These were all brought to Chicago by employees of the Chicago Tribune from their visits around the world at the request of the publisher of the newspaper back when the building was built.  We found this to be pretty interesting and wondered how many residents of the city pass right by the building every single day without even noticing.

Stones from the Sydney Opera House; the Forbidden City in Beijing; Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in Germany; and Santo Domingo Monastary and Church in Panama City

Some Roman ruins from Libya circa 455 B.C.; stone from St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna; a stone from a Japanese shrine in Tokyo and a stone from Abraham Lincoln's original tomb

House of Parliament; some temples in Cambodia; Dome of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Rome

We then headed for some famous Chicago pizza.  We chose Gino’s East, again from Roadfood recommendations.  Gino’s East is a Chicago area chain that besides having some great deep dish pizza, is famous for its graffiti covered interior walls.  We did not write our names on the walls but we did enjoy the great pizza.

After lunch we headed back to our hotel because we had to get ready for our big event: the Chicago Beer Experience which is a beer drinking tour of one of Chicago’s neighborhoods.  That’s right, a guy actually gets paid to bring you to bars and drink with you.  We read about this unusual tour on tripadvisor and wondered if every city has similar tours.  We met our guide and about a dozen other people who would be taking the tour at a bar in a neighborhood outside of the downtown area.  The tour consisted of beer tastings at various bars, along with some Chicago beer history thrown in for good measure.  The bars we went to were chosen for their selection of local beers, their historical significance and their uniqueness.  Beer tastings were included in the price of the tour as were food samples from one of the bars and a local hot dog stand.  We would certainly recommend the tour to anyone and we will surely be looking for similar tours in other cities as we travel. 

At the end of our tour we got back on the subway and headed back downtown where we visited the Bean one more time for some night shots.

 

On Sunday we ventured first out to Navy Pier, which is a touristy place on the lake in Chicago.  We had read about a free, stained glass museum called Smith Museum of Stained Glass windows, that few people seem to know about, so we headed over to check that out.  We took a city bus instead of the train and we were at the pier in less than 20 minutes.  When we first walked in they were in the middle of some cultural event, each week for a few months they have a different country represented.  This week was Mexico.  They had all kinds of booths set up with information on Mexico and they had performers dancing in traditional Mexican clothing.  We walked to the end of the pier, found the stained glass museum and explored the place for a little while.  The place was not big; we probably only spent about a half hour there and we saw everything, but it was kind of impressive. 

Since it was such a beautiful day we decided to head to the top of the John Hancock Tower for some really amazing views of the city.  Again, after a short bus ride we were there pretty quickly.  The admission price, at $17.50, was kind of expensive, but the views from the top of this skyscraper were pretty amazing. (We later found out it would have been cheaper to head for the bar on the 95^th floor, order two drinks and enjoy the same view for about the same price, drinks included). 

Looking back towards the Navy Pier

Close up of Navy Pier



After the observatory we had planned on heading for some unique hot dogs at a place called Hot Doug’s.  We had seen this hot dog restaurant on just about every food show there is.  This place was a little bit on the outskirts of the city but we found a really cool app called HopStop that allowed us to put in our current position and the address of where you wanted to go and it told you the best and quickest way to get there via public transportation.  The restaurant was about 45 minutes away by 2 busses.  Almost as soon as we boarded our 2^nd bus something told us to see what the hours were for the restaurant.  We quickly googled it and found out it was closed on Sundays!!  That was bad.  Luckily we were about 2 blocks from a subway stop when we came to this realization so we got off and headed back into the city.  We made another stop at Macy’s for more pictures and another stop at the cupcake place before heading back to the hotel.  We visited the lounge to see if it would compare to the lounge in Nagoya (It wasn’t even close), then we headed back to our room for the night.

On Monday we had a 10:30 AM flight so we grabbed breakfast in the lounge and started making our way to the airport by about 8.  We timed it just right getting through checking and security rather quickly and making the long walk to our gate where we only had to wait about 10 minutes before boarding.  We arrived back in Boston, picked up a rental car, and were back in our house by 2.  We checked on the cats, picked up the truck and returned our rental car to a closer location and just like that our trip was over.