we're back!

chicago was lots of fun! probably one of my favorite cities to visit, and i definitely recommend everyone to make a trip when you can. and if you do, definitely stay at the hotel we stayed at. it was the most convenient place you could imagine. every el train has a stop literally right outside the hotel, and if you know enough to ask for a large room ahead of time, you get huge rooms with two bathrooms! plus, the lobby is absolutely gorgeous, and it's the oldest running hotel in the country. we couldn't ask for more.

anyway, enough talk... onto what people probably want. pictures!

pics of our room at palmer house hilton. in the second pic, the two bathrooms are on the door on the far right & the door on the far left.







we ate at giordano's the first night. besides the crust, i actually think zachary's is much better.



we met up with eric on sunday, after getting lost trying to get to the church. lesson learned: follow the directions given to you. joy & i noticed that there was an el stop closer to the location of the church, so we just decided to get off there. and proceeded to get lost and discovered that the map was not to scale, and ended up having to walk a while to finally get to the church.



and no, we didn't go sailing. and we didn't die. :)

at the bean in millenium park. you can find the three of us?



eric talking on a pink razr :)



sunday night, we ate at weber grill, based on recommendation from alex. YUM. definitely go there if you're ever in chicago! they grill all their meat on huge weber grills, just like the one you'd have in your backyard. delicious.





we went to the hancock tower after dinner, and headed up to the signature lounge on the 95th floor. awesome views.



monday morning, we went on the chicago architecture foundation river cruise. it was really neat, very informative, and gives you a unique view of all the different buildlings around the city.

everytime i saw this buildling, the clock part reminded me of pacbell park.



me & joy on the boat tour with the sears tower in the background.



we went to art institute on monday - it was huge, and we didn't have time to go through everything. we spent a good deal of time in the miniature room area. they had all these minitaures of different rooms of different areas in history (ie "dining room in Pennsylvania, 1875." etc). there was so much detail in every single room - it was so much fun to look at. this one was of a living room in california circa 1930s.



a picture of american gothic, one of the most-spoofed pictures around.



eating a chicago dog before the cubs game!



so in the end, we ended up getting tickets to both a cubs game & wicked. we got cubs tickets on ebay for pretty good seats for below face value (thank goodness the cubs suck.) wrigley field was so much fun... it has this feeling of intimacy that you miss at other baseball parks.





we went to the field museum on tuesday, where we spent most of the afternoon. lots of cool exhibits, and we didn't even get to visit everything we wanted to. they had a special king tut exhibit, which was pretty cool.



this is sue, the most complete dinosaur t-rex fossil in the world.



hrm... something seems out of place in this exhibit of africa.



went to visit buckingham fountain & grant park afterwards...

love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage...



me & joy at trattoria no. 10 before seeing wicked.



and last, but not least, the lobby of our hotel from the mezzanine. breath-taking, and our tour book even recommended to visit the lobby even if you weren't staying there.



phew. that was long. lots more pics on my smugmug!
chicago pics

i definitely recommend a visit to the windy city!