Chi-town Baby!!!

Day 1
Holy cow, what a smooth trip, I cant remember a time when I had everything go so well in getting to the place where I was going. The border stuff was cake, the flight was good (I hadn’t even seen the in-flight movie “Ice Age 2”) O’Hare could be nightmarish I think if you had to wonder hither and yon to get somewhere but for us it was really easy. They had these great moving sidewalks all over and at one point this amazing neon overhead that moved along in colorful waves. We opted to take Airport Express to the hotel and holy mackerel are they organized, within 5 minutes we were in a van heading for downtown. One thing I will say, I am starting to wonder about my decision to return the rental car to the airport, it will mean driving there and that looked totally nuts. Oh well, that is still a while away.

The hotel is awesome. Nestled right downtown just off the Magnificent Mile (tones of shopping etc.) right around the corner from the John Hancock Centre (that enormous black building in the Chicago skyline with the two huge antenna sticking out of the top, essentially it looks like a giant alien tried to fit in and misinterpreted the dominant life form in Chicago an is now standing there waiting for the other buildings to make contact with him.) Anyhoo, the hotel has a view of the lake, although by all accounts it looks like the ocean in that you cannot see the other side, and the bed here is probably the most comfortable hotel bed I have ever slept in.

The city is amazing. Surprisingly it reminded me a lot of some major Canadian cities. At points it seemed like someone had taken Vancouver and Edmonton and smashed them together with overpriced clothing and restaurant chains. The MM looks a lot like Jasper Ave in parts, just bigger. Seriously though it is a gorgeous city. I will say one thing though, the place needs a bath because dang does it smell funny. Judging by the vague smells that wafted into my nose I would say the city might have an incontinence problem. That said I love it here, there is a strong sense of history and appreciation for architecture that I love.

I was also our anniversary yesterday and we went out looking for a place to dine. The concierge here wasn’t overly helpful but we managed to find something cool. Gino’s East is one of the places that originated Chicago Deep Dish pizza, and man was that awesome. I have never had a crust like that and I am not sure I will again which is a real shame. Makes me wonder if I am ruining myself food wise when I return. All these places in Canada that claim to have deep dish have never given me anything even close. Mike, our server, was arguably the nicest waiter/server I have ever had in my life… seriously the guy was awesome. He was friendly, he asked where we were from, helped us understand the menu, the signature dishes etc. He even went out of his way to tell us where to get carriage rides when we saw a horse and buggy go by. Good people here so far.

After the awesome ‘za we went to find a horse and buggy (I should mention I am a big idiot and forgot the camera on this one, which was killing me when we were going through some parts of town, the Victorian style houses were just breathtaking.) Our driver, Adam, was a cool guy and he took us on a 45 minute ride through the town that I really loved. It is pretty crazy though, trying to drive through traffic in Chicago on a freakin horse!

We got back to the hotel and just hung out for a bit. Today we head for the Hancock observatory, the Hershey story, and Navy Pier. This time I will take the camera, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.