Today was the day it all caught up with me - the anxiety of leaving a country I called home for a year, forced goodbyes to friends as close as family and 26 years of insomnia. Despite my mood, I found a lot to enjoy about Chicago even through my resting bitch face.
Our day trip to Chicago began with fish and chips that was pretty decent in a place that was fairly average and highly confusing. Samantha, Kyra and I stood in the middle of the restaurant trying to figure out where to go.
We strolled the city streets to the Willis Tower.
Along the way Samantha and I saw a bridge we walked over to get between two train stations in -13 degrees celcius. In the daylight with less wind and a lot less luggage it appeared significantly shorter.
We reached The Willis tower, rode the elevator all the way up to the second floor, saw the prices for continuing the journey much further up to the glass walkway then promptly rode the elevator back to the lobby. Sometimes I ride in lifts, but only if it's free.
When people think of Chicago three things come to mind - the wind, Oprah and The Bean.
You'll notice my resting bitch face disappeared, and that's because we'd found a free activity. Actually, aside from food and parking our whole day in Chicago was a cheapskate's dream.
Samantha and I took our token ear photo here.
We took a brief amble through the city.
Chicago felt innovative, fresh and inviting.
We arrived in Millenium Park.
Here Kyra and I witnessed a little boy climb a quarter of the way up a rope structure, look at the rest of it the same way I view dirty dishes piled in a sink and then slowly backed away. Sometimes you have to choose your battles wisely.
Kyra chased a few geese before we continued at a slightly slower speed along the water.
Navy Pier was another beautiful piece of the Chicago puzzle.
There were a couple of photo ops.
We looked at some windows. They weren't as exciting as the arched window from Playschool, but they were quite beautiful.
A day in Chicago concluded with some quiet time with a deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.
That scrumptious meal wasn't dessert, but it was probably just as fattening.
Getting out of Chicago once again became quite the adventure. Back to Milwaukee we didn't avoid the tolls, or paying for each of them with the smallest shrapnel we could scrounge up. This was followed by more highway hijinks. Kyra managed to exit and re-enter four times before deciding she'd found the correct exit. I feel pretty familiar with that stretch of the Milwaukee highway now.
There's even more stuff about Milwaukee I'm familiar with, which you can read about in the next post.
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