The Windy City

Ok now, prepare yourself for a big one...I have quite a few stories to tell you.

This past weekend we went to Chicago. It was Awesome. Insanely awesome. Our trip began with a 3 hour drive to South Bend where Beth lives and goes to collage, after our lovely dinner Johnny and Beth taught us the many wonders of "Beer Pong". It was the quintessential friday night American collage experience really. While Jen and i had "beginners luck" essentially

Johnny and Beth dominated every time.

When we woke up in the morning it was snowing. I'm sure your imagination can devise some sort of representation of our reactions, so i will leave that up to you =)

Once we had spent a few hours on the train we arrived in Chicago and mad

e our way to Millennium Park and...the Bean. The Bean is a large metal, reflective, structure that you can walk through...i had a little writers moment while i was there, dreaming of a story told from the viewpoint of all the reflections trapped in the bean...i go a little nuts like that sometimes.

The park was full of sculptures and other fun things like an ice skating rink. The architecture in Chicago is amazing...The blending of old and new infrastructure is quite unique.

Our first stop was the Art Institute of Chicago...This place was brilliant. There were many a treasure there i can't really convey in words but the most exciting part was seeing those paintings i've studied in art for years, that you see on the front books, that even the least artistic person recognises...The most exciting part was seeing these...Not the picture on the front of the art book, but the real one!

I should, at this point, point out that it was freezing, so our cold feet and empty stomachs made their way to "Giordano's" for some of Chicago's famous deep dish pizza.

After clogging every single artery in our bodies we made our way alon

g Michigan Avenue A.K.A the "Magnificent Mile". Here we spotted some famous names and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Chicago's city life as the sun set.

By the time the Sun had well and truly set we were on a bus beginning the endeavor to find the only "Threadless" t-shirt store in the world. Jen and i have been buying shirts from the Threadless website for a few years now, together we own around 16. Our friends shop from there and each friday we are greeted with a fresh batch of t-shirts to check out in our inbox's...so to actually be there was incredible. In accordence with their humerous T-shirt slogans and general fun-ness the store itself was full of quirky hilarities. below is a photo of the shops office (the place where you work...behind a desk) and "office" (the place where you

work...on a toilet)... i must admit i loled a little.

We then made our way to Navy Pier, which is a theme park-esque pier drenched in lights and games and shops. Here we rode the Ferris Wheel, one of the coolest things ever...the pictures

speak for themselves really.

Hot Dogs for dinner. I'm not such a fan, here is a picture of Jen's, it was kinda gross really...but as they say, when in Rome...

From this point on in the adventure things became less fun...they were certainly exhilarating...but the combination of swiftly eaten hot dog and fries, with a power walk across the city and some hectic sprinting didn't suit my stomach so well. I'd like to say i vomitted, i feel it would more acurately represent the drama of the last hour of our trip but alas i didn't, things actually went down a little more like this...So we knew we had to walk quickly to get from navy pier to the city centre to get the train in time, so trusting our trusty GPS system off we marched, after about 25 minutes we hit trouble, realising we had no idea where it was. I

speedy walk to the station turned into "The Amazing Race; chicago Style". After lots of running and back tracking we made the last sprint to the train as it began to pull away from the platform. Upon arriving home and being asked why we couldn't find a train system with a gps in our hand, the unfortunate truth was conveyed, the train station was under ground, the gps kept telling us we were there because the whole time we were on top of some part of it.

So exhausted and ill we boarded the train and headed back to South Bend. It was ace hanging with Johnny and Beth and i'm fairly sure they enjoyed the trip as much as we did, we were very blessed with friends who would take us. Chicago certainly stands as my favourite city to date.