Weekend in Chicago (Travel Tuesday)

Back in June, Adam's cousin got married in Chicago.  Adam booked a trip to head out a few days before the weekend so he could work in his company's Chicago office.  Since my Birthday landed on the Thursday before the wedding, I decided to head out early too. The long weekend turned out pretty good and karma was definitely in my favor.

Adam was already in Chicago and I flew out with Adam's brother who was visiting some friends and ditched me at the airport to head to Evanston.  I arrived at night and the line for a cab was long and cabs were arriving slowly.  The dispatchers where trying to arrange share cabs and announced  "downtown."  The woman in front of me jumped out of the line to see if she could skip the line, but someone ahead of us got there first.  Now that I knew she was headed downtown, I asked her where she was headed exactly.  She told me her hotel, I looked it up real quick and asked if she wanted to share with me since we were staying right across the river, and figured paying half-fare would be nice.  We had a very nice chat on the ride, and found out she was in town for business from Toronto.  When we got to my hotel she told me that she could expense the cab ride and to have a Happy Birthday the ride was on her!

The Lurie Garden

For the first two nights we stayed at the Sheraton near the Miracle Mile. I booked on Hotwire, and my first Hotwire experience turned out great (mental note for a post for another time).

The next morning was my Birthday!  First Adam and I went out for a delicious breakfast at Wildberry and then we walked all around Millennium Park.  Although we had been there a few times before we discovered
the Lurie Garden which was really beautiful and which we had never been to.

In the afternoon, Adam got me a gift card for a massage at the Red Door Spa.  I got to the spa, changed into my robe and locked my stuff in a locker and enjoyed some lemon water before my masseuse called me in.  I came out of the session very relaxed, went to enter my code for the locker and it didn't open, tried again made a positive beeping noise, but still didn't open.  I thought maybe I forgot my code and put in another option, that time it gave me an angry noise indicating that it was the incorrect code.  I went to the front desk for help, they brought over the "master key" and tried to unlock it - again it sounded like it worked, but the lock was stuck.

The only way in was to break in (you will all be happy to know it is pretty difficult and impossible to do without getting noticed).  So, for the next 30 minutes they broke out the hammer and the Spackle-er and tried to pry the door open.  All the while, my phone stuck in the locker ringing and dinging with Birthday calls and texts. I, in the meantime, was trying to inspect the other lockers and their lock mechanisms to try to help them figure out just how to break in. Although I remained very calm the whole time (luckily I had nowhere else to be), the spa felt so bad that they gave me this really nice cinnamon scented warming neck pillow and some lotions, sprays and a candle. (At the end of the day, I say, free stuff equals more good karma).

Birthday dessert at RPM

For a Birthday dinner, I made a reservation at RPM. Now although the restaurant came highly recommended, I am always skeptical of  celebrity-owned establishments (this one by Bill Rancic, Giuliana Rancic's husband).  But, this place was amazing!  They had a really unique menu that was familiar enough to try but still had an element of trying something new and different.  If you are ever in Chicago I highly recommend this place! The menu is set up so that everyone shares which is nice since it's the type of place where you just want to taste everything on the menu.  They were also very nice and supplied me with a birthday dessert which was a sorbet and ice cream in mini ice cream cones (see the picture).

As, I mentioned, Adam and I had been to Chicago a few times before, so we had done the Architectural

Chicago view from lake

boat tour on the river, but thought a night time boat ride might be nice.  So we opted to take a sunset cruise off of the Navy Pier as our night-time activity.  It was a bit windy out there, but also provided some great views of the city and Navy Pier.  As we were walking around, some high-schoolers came over to us to say they had some Ferris Wheel passes left over but they had to leave, so lucky us we got to use them!  Not only did we get to ride for free, but since they were just closing for the night, they let us stay on for some extra rotations so they could even out the weight of passengers. (See more good Karma!)

Most of the remainder of the trip was spent with Adam's family and wedding related activities, but it was a Shariously nice get-away. And here's one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Ferris Wheel