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Published: June 28th 2012
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Day 1
We caught the Southwest flight out of Las Vegas at 9:25am. We found some free wi-fi in the airport and we couldn’t tear ourselves away so we ended being the last two people to board the flight! As the seating was unassigned we couldn’t get seats together. I ended between a nice couple called Fran and Dave who were on their way to Italy for a holiday. The flight was good, the air hostess let us take as many snacks as we liked so I took one of each, which was 3. We arrived into Midway, collected our luggage and headed to the subway. We bought 3 day passes for $14 each and caught the orange line to Clark/Lake then switched to the blue line and got off at Division. We walked the block to our accommodation for 3 nights, a B n B called The House of Two Urns. Chicago accommodation is very expensive so this was a good alternative. We checked in, the house is quite quirky and has a lot of character. We picked our spot for breakfast (8:15am) then went up to our bedroom. Our room had a theme of Princess and the Pea,
and our bed was up so high we had a little ladder to get on it. Oli had a little snooze, and then we went back out. We caught the blue line to the stop called Chicago then took the 66 bus to Navy Pier, a large pier on Michigan Lake with a Ferris Wheel, restaurants, shops and other rides. We had a wander round and decided to go to a restaurant called Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. We sat outside and shared an appetizer called Shrimper’s Net Catch, which was half a pound of spicy prawns. Then we shared a main of “Bucket of Boat Trash” which was flash fried shrimp, white fish, and steamed lobster claw. I also had a blueberry milkshake. It was all very tasty and definitely one of our favourite meals of the trip. The wind picked up towards the end of the meal, we could definitely see why it’s called the windy city.
After the meal we bought tickets for the Ferris Wheel, a very reasonable $6 each. We got on and enjoyed a little trip around the wheel. The sun had set so it was nice to see Chicago all lit up. It
reminded us a lot of Sydney. Then we had a wander through the shops and went to a crepe shop by the water. I got a Navy Pier crepe with strawberries, Nutella and walnuts. It was sooo tasty.
Then we picked out spot to watch the free fireworks Navy Pier puts on every Wednesday and Saturday. They were amazing, it was a massive display and there were fireworks going off all over the place. After the fireworks we caught the subway home. This night was my favourite night of the whole trip.
Day 2
We awoke for our 8:15am breakfast. There were the usual cereal, toast etc and each day Kapra makes a special 3 course breakfast with a hot main. We had the 3 course meal, which consisted of strawberries blueberries and blackberries to start, then a chocolate croissant, then for main we had french toast with bananas, raspberries and maple syrup with sausage, which was lovely.
We took the tube to Millenuim Park and had a wander round there, then we went back to our favourite place, Navy Pier and booked ourselves on to a one hour long architecture boat tour with Shoreline. There
is a more detailed architecture tour with CAF but we just wanted to go for a cruise on the river and hear about some big buildings. Our tour guide was Sarah, she was quite funny and told us lots of interesting facts about the buildings as we went by them. It was boiling and I was regretting not putting on more sun tan lotion. I had another crepe at Navy Pier as they were just so nice. Then we bought tickets for Cirque Shanghai, a crazy acrobatic show. I’ve never seen anything like it, the skill, accuracy and flexibility they displayed cannot be described in words.
We caught the subway back to the Two Urns and went for dinner at a Thai restaurant called Penny’s Noodle Soup. We had a red thai curry, a different spicy curry, some crab dumplings and chicken satay. Then we headed home to bed.
Day 3
We awoke for the usual 8:15 breakfast. This time it was strawberries, blueberries and pineapple, followed by a lemon and poppyseed muffin, then the man was a sundried tomato and spinach frittata. All delicious again. We had a lazy morning and didn’t head out until midday.
We booked on to a Segway tour at 2:30pm. 8 of the 12 had done a Segway before. We expertly hopped on our Segways and off we went. I felt sorry for the newbies on the trip as the tour guide went off at full speed and didn’t let up for the full 3 hours! I definitely couldn’t have gone that fast on my first tour. The tour took us all around Millenium Park and up to the observatory and all around. As part of our Segway tour we paid an extra $10 which let you hire bikes for the day. Oli thought it would be a good idea to get a tandem bike. We forgot to get helmets and within 2 minutes Oli had us on the road getting dangerously close to a bus. We swiftly abandoned the road idea and stuck to the cycle paths. It took us a while to get used to the bike but once we got going we were storming along. We cycled 8km up to the top of Lakeview path and then came all the way back down to the middle, then headed down to the bottom and back up again, a total
of 30 odd km! We returned the bike, got the subway home, got changed then went to Thai Village for dinner. We had more Thai food, then back to the b and b for bed.
Day 4
We went down for our last breakfast of the trip. We had cherries, a cinnamon bun, and some lovely French toast with walnuts. We packed up our suitcase for the last time and dropped them off wih Kapra then headed to the subway. We took the subway to the Willis Tower, which is the tallest building in the United States, bought our tickets then took the elevator to the 103
rd floor to the Skydeck. There are clear panels that stick out of the side of the building. We took some photos sat/laid/stood on them and admired the view. Then we headed back down. It was hot out so we sat down on some grass outside and looked up at where we had just been. We walked around the magnificent mile and got some Chinese food at Go Asian Express. By this time it was around 3pm so we took the tube back to area where our B and B was before
our passes ran out at 3:30. Then we went to Wicker Park and proceeded to fall asleep while we waited for the time to get the plane. We felt like homeless people. At 5 we picked up our bags from The Two Urns then caught the subway to O’Hare. We checked in then got some pizza and ice cream, and got in the queue for security. The queue wasn’t even that long but it moved so slowly it took nearly an hour to get through. Oli went into the body scanner as usual and then it beeped at him. He was motioned into a different area, and a woman started pulling on some rubber gloves. Oli looked scared at this point. Turns out he had been pulled over for a random drugs test so they swiped his hands and we finally got through security. We boarded the flight first as we were at the back. I was a bit sad to be leaving as we had so much fun on our holiday but we will definitely return one day soon. British Airways food was, as expected, rubbish. We landed safely back in the UK to our lovely dreary weather. Back
to reality!
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Phyllis Farrand
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Wonderful Blog entry!!!!
Lisa and Oliver, Thanks so much for your last e-mail. That was a lot to catch up with. I really enjoyed reading everything about your Chicago visit and am so glad you had such a good time. Come to see us again real soon. Love Phyllis