Chicagoland

We are back in Willmar from a week long honeymoon in Chicago, Illinois. As of right now, it all feels like a blur, it went so fast! I'm still trying to recap the week for my own benefit, which is partially a reason why I am blogging about it!

The Flight

We arrived in Minneapolis the night before we flew out so that we wouldn't have to worry about making the drive early in the morning. As an added bonus, we found out that Days Inn (Bloomington West) has an airport shuttle and will hold your car for $25 a week. Steal! We took advantage of that. It was all a breeze, except for that Jacinda and I, being first time flyer's, accidentally left our carry-on with our other baggage. We had about $1000 worth of crap in those and they didn't have ID tags. So that was a little nerve-wracking. It also didn't help watching them toss bags onto the plane! We did get our stuff back in Chicago, however. so it was all good.

Transportation

Once we got to Chicago and dumped our crap at our Hotel room, we figured next step would be to figure out a means of transportation. Initially we took a cab to get to our first destination, had a wonderful talk with the driver. He dropped us off and we got done with our shopping. Since we now had an approximation of how far we were from our hotel, we decided to just walk the rest of the way. Living in a small town with light traffic, you kind of forget what walking is, almost. After realizing this, we ended up walking to 90% of our destinations in Chicago. This was nice for the sake of cutting costs as well as for burning off all the food we ate. We didn't bother with Buses or the Train, that will be for another trip.

Food

Mmmm!!! Sooo much food! Highlights were the following: Giordano's, DeLaCosta, Puck's and Lavazza. Giordano's was great Chicago-style pizza. Deep, cheese on the crust, followed by sauce. I highly recommend this!!! You'll be able to split a small between two people and eat it for at least two meals! Puck's was in the contemporary Art Museum and had very nice light dishes. Felt healthy and looked appealing. Lavazza was an excellent Italian coffee shop. We tried their "Solid espresso" called Espesso. In the USA, it's available only in Chicago. Coffee was good, too. Last but not least, DeLaCosta was a ritzy Latin food restaurant. The food looked and tasted amazing. We got some drinks, which the name escapes me, that consisted of wine, brandy and lots of fruits. Had a wonderful appetizer which was a sort of Chicken with a very delicious green chile sauce. My main entree was Salmon, which was drenched in lemon, cilantro (i think) and topped with horseradish sauce. The Salmon was cooked interesting. It was almost raw. I want to figure out how to do that. We also had a very tasty desert, which they gave us free! Wow!

Sights/Shows

We hit a couple Art Museums, viewed the city from the John Hancock skydeck, saw "The Bean" and Millineum Park, visited Walgreen's multiple times and saw plenty other Chicago sights. We took a cab up to "The Second City" and saw their act, "Disposable Nation" which was filled with plenty of Sarcasm towards American culture and topics. It was pretty funny stuff and quite far fetched. Very talented people! We also went to "Schuba's Tavern" and attended their mini-festival thing they had going on. Bands I appreciated was Office and Mucca Pazza. Mucca Pazza is absolutely talented. I can't even begin to explain their show. check them out on Youtube for a few videos. We also saw the Pianist, Lang Lang perform at the Orchestra hall.

The Company

Only me and Jacinda. It was perfect. :-)

OOF! It was a great week and an awesome trip. I am very pleased that we decided to go to Chicago for a honeymoon. Though the location is a little off-beat for a honeymoon (I guess), it was a great experience.

Tags: Archive_Blogger, Jacinda, Nick, Travel

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