So every year in the fall Jeremy and I will take a mini-vacation. The past two years we have gone to Charlottesville, Va but this year Jeremy said he wanted to surprise me and so he made arrangements not telling me what they were, just that I was to pick him up from the airport after his business trip to PA. He managed to keep the destination secret for over two months…then I get an email from United Airlines the Friday before we were supposed to leave informing me of my “upcoming trip to Chicago”, busted! (And I informed Jeremy as such with a text message promptly after receiving the email). We had both talked about wanting to go to Chicago sometime as neither of us had ever gotten farther than the O’Hare airport so this was a great surprise.
So Friday afternoon I head to the airport and we fly out (first class! Yay upgrades!) around 5pm. The awesome thing about first class is the unlimited beverages…including wine, which we both took full advantage of on the flight 😉 We landed in Chicago at 6pm Central time, made our way to the subway and picked up a 3-day unlimited transit pass (definitely the best value for a weekend, $14 for unlimited rides vs $1.50 per ride otherwise, and since we were planning on using public transport as our primary transportation this worked well for us, no worries about running out of fare on your transit card). Our hotel, The W – City Center is on the blue line which comes straight out of the airport, so a 30ish minute ride and a bit of wandering later we made it to our hotel and checked into the room. The lounge/bar/lobby of the W was pretty busy with the cocktail crowd but we’d had enough wine on the plane so we headed up to our room.
This room is so cool, I *love* the decor, very modern and graphic, but cosy too. Instead of the bed being perpendicular to the door when you walk in it’s facing you and the first thing you see walking in, definitely a focal point with its dramatic under-bed lighting. There’s lots of cool mood lighting and the lampshades have screenprinted text of various words that start with “w” (wish…their main slogan word, welcome, wonderland, wordplay, etc.) and an art/light piece with the quote “life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” So overall a very swanky, very cool room.
This morning we woke up early (for this timezone, around 730) and went to breakfast at a local diner. They had all the classic diner breakfast items, Jeremy had pancakes and sausage, I had a spinach and feta omlette with flat-top hash brown potatoes (so good! crunchy golden brown deliciousness) and toast. After that filling breakfast we headed to the number 6 bus that took us on a scenic ride following the lakeshore down to the Museum of Science and Technology.
The museum was very busy and even though we got there right when they opened at 930 we still had to wait about 15 minutes in line to get in, but there were enough distractions of exhibit advertisements and people watching that it wasn’t too bad. They had just started their holiday exhibition so the main lobbies were decked out with dozens of Christmas trees (each themed as a different country), a nice way to start out the holiday season. There are dozens of interacive exhibits, from the human body and genomes to farming technology, trains, planes (including an entire 727 you can walk through) but my favorite area was the storm and weather area. There were cool simulated tornadoes, explanation of how lightning and static electricity works, and demos of a miniature tsunami showing how different types of coastlines affect the waves.
Around noon we left the museum in search of food and after a quick consultation on Yelp and Urbanspoon we decided on The Nile restaurant, a Middle Eastern place, about two blocks from the museum with a very well reviewed red lentil soup. So we take a quick walk to the restaurant and try to order a “lighter” lunch since we are going to a nice dinner this evening at L20. With that in mind, Jeremy and I split a bowl of the red lentil soup (which definitely lived up to its reputation, savory, earthy, hearty…although it was yellow not red, not sure how that works), a cucumber and yogurt salad with various herbs in it (also very tasty) then we both got pitas, mine with chicken, Jeremy’s with beef and lamb. Both pitas had yogurt, tomatoes, thin slices of pickle and red onion along with the marinated and seasoned meat, and the pita was grilled/pressed making the outside toasty and crunchy but the inside still soft, yum! And to top it off the whole meal was under $20, a very good deal for the amount of food they gave you.
After lunch we decided to take the 6 back uptown and we wandered along the river and lakefront, snapping some photos of the city and its cool and varied architecture along the way. We’ll relax at the hotel until 6 then we’re taking the complementary “Acura experience” chauferred car (you watch a marketing video apparently during your ride) to dinner at L20 (tasting menu here we come!) 🙂

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