Chicago Trip!!

I had a great trip to Chicago last week.  I went for 4 days and 3 nights and stayed at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.  I went with two friends, and one of them works there so she invited us to go.  We did a River Architecture Cruise Tour and that was good...very detailed about all of the buildings on the Chicago River and who the company was, the firm that financed it, what art deco era, the year, design...etc.  At one point Michelle looked at me and said "are you falling asleep?"  I smiled and answered "yes!" LOL!

I was definitely impressed with all of the downtown buildings.  They were all unique and just a ton of history.

We also bought a 3 day package for a double decker/trolley tour guide.  That was really neat.  There was 14 stops in the downtown tour and you could get on and off at any of those stops from 9a-5p everyday.  Not only did we see and learn about Chicago from this tour, but we also used it for a means of transportation around the city.  A double decker bus would be by a stop every 15-20 minutes to pick up or drop off.  We also bought another package to tour the rest of Chicago that took trolley buses out to the suburban parts of the city.  We took two out of three of those tours and saw Wrigley Field, Chinatown, Greektown, and Little Italy. We drove right next to Wrigley Field, but didn't get to see inside the stadium since there was construction.  And Chinatown was neat to see where Chinese immigrants settled over 100 years ago.  There was not much left of Greektown and Little Italty with the exceptions of a few restaurants.

I enjoyed the food in Chicago...maybe a little too much!  Haha!  The first day we ate lunch at Giordano's...so good!!  The pizza was fabulous!! We also had dessert after dinner nearly every night...c'mon we're on vacation!! :) I celebrated my 31st birthday there and had a wonderful meal. We went to an Italian restaurant (surprise, surprise) and we shared 4-5 different entrees and then headed over to The Cheesecake Factory for dessert.  I am still smiling a week later!

Last, but certainly not least we did a little shopping as well! They have a street called "The Magnificient Mile" where they advertise a mile of fabulous shopping.  A couple of the tour bus guides said it isn't actually a full mile, but more like 3/4 of a mile.  Either way...I enjoyed it.  I think that Macy's headquarters are in Chicago, so we probably saw at least 4 of those and the one we went into was 8 stories tall!! Now, it wasn't as wide a normal Macy's, but 8 stories was pretty impressive.  I also got to visit a Vera Bradley store...LOVE IT!! I wish I could take the decor from that store and decorate a room or two in my house!  The American Girl Place was really neat; two stories of dolls, clothes, accessories, matching outfits for the girl owners, a cafe, a hair salon for the dolls...you name it they had it.  Ally is a little too young for this now, but I can't wait for when she gets older! :)

I had a wonderful time...great place to visit and plenty of things to do in Chicago!