Roseyland

Last weekend I took a tip to one of my favorite cities, Chicago. I love big cities, every time I visit one, I want to move there. Of all the big cities I have been to, Chicago is my favorite. I have also been to New York City, Boston, and Washington D.C., but Chicago has big city cred along with midwestern charm. I should point out that for me to consider a city a “big city”, it must have an extensive subway (or El) system, which disqualifies a lot of cool cities such as St. Louis, Seattle, Denver, etc…

Back to the point of this post, I went on this trip with my Mom, Aunt, and cousin. My Mom and I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and took the El to our hotel, the Embassy Suites Lakefront. I love this hotel. It is located near the Navy Pier and Michigan Avenue is a short walk away. It also has a great free breakfast and a beautiful atrium, which you can see in the picture below. The only downside to this hotel is that it is a 6 block walk to the nearest El station, but if you don’t like walking, you shouldn’t visit Chicago.

After checking into the hotel, I headed out to visit a college friend of mine. Below is a picture of the subway station on the way to my friends house. I know a lot of people think subway stations are disgusting and depressing, but I love them. They feel so urban and “real”. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it is I like about subways, and I’m still not sure what it is. Partly it is because trains are cool, I also like the freedom of being able to move around on a vast transportation network, I also like the diversity of people on the train and how you are around so many people but are still completely independent. Deep huh? Oh and another thing. See that kid in the foreground in the light gray sweatshirt? He is pretending to “please himself” so that when he finishes “it” hits the train coming into the station. Ahh, the innocence of youth.

Below is a picture of John and Rob in their condo in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. John is my friend from college and Rob is his partner. So um yeah, they are gay. A quick side note, in college John was president of the young republicans, and now he is a gay man living with his gay partner in the gay neighborhood of Chicago. You have no idea how much happiness this brings me. I am insanely jealous of John and Rob’s condo, and I would love to live where they do. Well, except for all the gay people in the neighborhood. I mean I’m okay with all that, I just don’t want to live in the middle of it.

After visiting John and Rob, I took the subway back to the hotel. Apparently they are working on the red line, and I got diverted into downtown. This meant I had to walk a ways through downtown fairly late at night, but I did get the cool picture of the El station below.

On Thursday, my aunt and cousin arrived and we headed to Michigan avenue. Our first stop was Gino’s East to have some traditional Chicago deep dish pizza. Below is a picture of the witting covered walls of Gino’s.

We spent the afternoon walking around Michigan avenue and my first stop was the apple store. This was an awesome apple store. It had two levels and auditorium like area. I’ve been thinking about switching to Mac lately, so I spent a lot of time playing with all of the toys trying to decide if I could make the switch or not. I’m still undecided, but that is a topic for another blog post.

Friday morning we walked by Millennium park and down to the Field museum. Below is a picture of the fountain. The video display shows pictures of different Chicagoans and in the summer water shoots out of their mouths.

Here is a picture of the bean.

This is just a cool view down one of Chicago’s streets. I like how you can see the El station elevated above the street in between the buildings.

Here is a picture of Sue in the Field museum. I wish we had allowed more time for this museum, because it was very cool, but I guess that just means I’ll have to go back someday.

Here is another picture of an El station that I included because I love subway stations so much.

Friday night we went to see Wicked. Here is a picture of my cousin, Mom, and aunt posing in front of the Chicago theater sign. Yes I know wicked isn’t at the Chicago theater, but a picture in front of the Oriental sign just doesn’t make sense when you are visiting Chicago.

Here is a picture of the stage for Wicked. The theater was amazing and Wicked was a great show. If you are in Chicago, you should definitely see it. Also, you don’t need to read the book before you see the show, in fact, I heard the show is better than the book.

Saturday morning we took a tour of the Wicker Park neighborhood. This is a neighborhood not too far from downtown with a cool mix of people. There are lots of unique restaurants and old buildings converted into condos. If I lived in Chicago, this is one of the places I would love to live. He is a picture of Milwaukee avenue in Wicker Park.

Here is another picture of Wicker Park. I love the water tower and El tracks in the background.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the top of the John Hancock building. Here is a picture of Michigan avenue from the observatory.

This might be my favorite picture from the trip. Crazy religious people on Michigan avenue. I am a big fan of crazy, and religious crazy is my favorite type of crazy. The guy with the microphone was saying something about all Catholics going to hell. I was a little scared to take this picture for fear he would start talking to me over his megaphone, but he didn’t. What was amazing about this whole situation is just how unaffected people on the street were to all of the commotion. Also, I love the prairie dress the woman is wearing. I wonder if she bought it on Michigan avenue.

One of our final stops in Chicago was to have a traditional Chicago hot dog at Portillo’s. Here is my all beef hot dog with everything. It was very tasty and just looking at the picture makes me hungry.

Over the course of 3 and a half days, I walked approximately 23 miles. This surprised me, but I mapped it out in Google earth, and Google Earth doesn’t lie. You can see most of the places we walked below. If you look around in Chicago, you will notice that pretty much everybody is skinny. I think this has something to do with walking 5 miles a day.

You can see more pictures of my trip on my Flickr page. Chicago is a great town. I wish there was some type of high speed train between St. Louis and Chicago, because I’d love to go more often. Or maybe I’ll find a job there.