Chicago Adventure

I'd been craving a just Angel-and-me getaway for some time now. We decided it would be a better idea to plan travel after the icy roads were done for the season, so we used Airbnb (2nd successful Airbnb booking!) to reserve an apartment in downtown Chicago for two nights.

During our 48 hour getaway, we were able to accomplish a variety of adventures, including but not limited to:

-Visiting friends
-Taking the subway/train/whatever they call it
-Visiting Chinatown, where Angel found a new favorite snack: dried fish.
-Learning to play Settlers of Catan
-Eating appetizers at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine (sweet potato fries were amazing!)
-Eating chocolate cake at The Cheesecake Factory (because Angel detests cheesecake)
-Walking lots and lots of miles.
-Wandering around the mall at the Watertower
-Eating lunch at Frontera Fresco, purely because we'd been to the Frontera Fresco in the international terminal at the Chicago Airport before when we were in transit, and Angel loved it.
-Exploring the Field Museum
-Exploring Navy Pier, including the (free!) Smith Museum of Stained Glass and Crystal Garden and drinking a (not free) smoothie from Jamba Juice.
-Watching the latest Once Upon a Time episode on ABC.
-Working out in the gym at the apartment building.
-Eating dinner at Chipotle.
-Watching 5 episodes of Psych on Netflix.

I wanted to hit up the Lincoln Park Zoo, too, but Angel wasn't up for another several mile walk in 37 degree weather with no earmuffs, so we decided to relax more than we would have had the weather been nicer!

 Our view of a snowy and rainy mix from the 37th floor apartment.

 Mandatory River Photo

 Interesting advertisement battle.

 The actual skulls from the very scary lions from the true story of man-eating lions which inspired the movie The Ghost and The Darkness. (In a strange turn of events, once upon a time someone gave us a DVD player which had The Ghost and the Darkness DVD inside it...so we watched it. Otherwise, I probably never would have heard of this terrifying tale)

 This mineral was exhibited at the 1893 World's Fair and they let us touch it! (The sign said we could)

 My favorite stained glass picture from the museum.

 I was quite enamored with this fountain in the Crystal Garden.

This was Angel's favorite museum exhibit, of course.

We also learned a few lessons about city life, and its differences from small-town life in West Michigan:

-You ride elevators a lot more. And I don't particularly enjoy having to rely and wait for an elevator to get in and out of my own home, but when you're staying on the 37th floor, you don't have much of a choice because the stairs don't sound fun either.

-Angel learned first-hand that people in the city are much less trusting, probably with good reason. A bunch of people were getting on an elevator, and the lady in front of us was having a hard time pulling her rolling suitcase onto the elevator because of the little ledge, so Angel bent down and put his hands on her suitcase to help her lift it over the edge and she immediately started shouting at him to get away and get his hands off of her stuff. I'm guessing she felt very threatened and scared because of what he'd done--though I do think she overreacted, of course that's because I know and trust Angel. He apologized to her when we all got into the elevator but she continued to yell directly at Angel and all the other people in the elevator who were not affiliated with the incident--I felt so bad for the other people in the elevator, including our friends' baby who started crying because she was scared of the yelling. Angel probably should have known better than to do that in the city. Where we live, it's normal to do stuff like pick up something someone dropped and hand it to them or catch a blown-away grocery cart for them or, say, help someone pull their suitcase over a ledge, but it doesn't seem  appropriate in a large city. Next time we'll wait until someone asks for help to assist. Or maybe Angel won't. I can't quite always predict what he'll do. He says he doesn't mind getting yelled at, he's used to it because of his job. But I can relate to the crying baby because I was quite nervous, myself!

-There is construction everywhere. I don't know if this is normal for Chicago or if it's construction season, but there was construction in the building we stayed in, the street we were staying on, the Field Museum, AND Navy Pier. Construction everywhere!

-The city is so much more fun to cheapskate-me when we don't have to pay to park everywhere we go. Our apartment included a parking pass, and after we arrived, we walked almost everywhere we went (we took the train to Chinatown). The museum and Navy Pier and other adventurous places start to sound so much more appealing when you don't have to pay $20 for parking everywhere you go. The weather wasn't ideal, but we still conquered!

We returned home on Tuesday with sore legs and interesting memories.