chicago "tourist traps"

Another Chicago post because before heading home to Michigan after the bachelorette festivities, I spent the afternoon and evening with two of my best friends who just recently moved to Chicago. You better believe we did tourist stuff! I thought they would enjoy it more being new to the city rather than being a 'local' and visiting these busy places and becoming annoyed the the real tourists haha. Maybe my logic is off, but maybe I just had a really good time with my gal pals and don't care all that much.

I drove out of the city to their cute little suburbian neighborhood and from there we grubbed on some delicious local eats and then took the train back downtown.

The first thing we did was go to the "Sears Tower" Skydeck. I mean, officially it's Willis Tower but does anyone really call it that? And after the new owners changed the name.. understandable, but I also think petty.. how annoying do you think it was to have to define their building as Sears Tower since know one knew what the hell the Willis Tower was? Tickets to the top were $22 for general admission with no extra frills which I thought was pretty decent (especially compared to the $62 per person it would've cost to go to Medieval Times.. better planning for my next trip because it's been 16 years since I last dined like a Knight).

The biggest attraction here is The Ledge. SO COOL! 1,353 feet above Chicago with clear views of it all; hopefully if you visit it's not on a cloudy day. My biggest let down of this portion of the day was when we asked someone to take a group picture of us. Obviously no one can ever get the picture quite how you like it, but my anger also stems from the fact that I got great pictures of said person's group before it was our turn! GUH. But then I quickly got over because I was with the best of friends doing something cool.

Next up.. I'm sure you can guess. Millennium Park and a visit to the great and shiny BEAN! But before getting there we passed this interesting art installment. I don't recall seeing it before or even hearing about it. Giant waterfall fountains with moving faces that spit water? Yes, I TOTALLY see what the artist is representing.

Okay, back to the Bean and a Chicago style hotdog!

Aw, friends!

 Yeah, I know, without the onions and tomatoes my dog looked pretty bland and green compared to Chelsea and Caytee's. Yeap, that whole 5 year old taste palette striking back again. I don't care though, it was still delicious and I downed the whole thing!



Windy City out!
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a bachelorette in chicago

On Friday night, I headed to Chicago to celebrate with my cousin for her bachelorette party! First things first, I obviously wanted to slay so I had planned on getting my nails done. The part I had not planned on was my nails taking almost two hours causing me to miss my damn train. Luckily I was able to get refunded 80% of my tickets, but I was still so incredibly angry at myself because it was all my fault. I mean really it was the perfectionist nail tech that I had. I like to think they were at least worth it.

So, I put Piper to bed for the first time as a two year old, Brendon gathered me some snacks and kindly filled my gas tank and I was off! I made it just under 4 hours; only 30 minutes later than my train was scheduled to arrive! Either way I was unfortunately going to miss day/night one of festivities. 

The room was setup so cute! What a wonderful maid of honor she had! Why didn't I document more of it..

The next day we all got up, got ready and headed out to a delicious brunch!

Yah, the eggs benny was so good I coudn't even get a picture before digging in. Haha, why yes, I AM A YELPER! 

Afterwards we made our way through the city to a wine tasting event. I'm absolutely not into wine but it was such a good time with everyone! Initially I was nervous about fitting in because out of 11 guests I was 1 of 3 that was not in the same sorority, but after meeting and hanging out with  everyone (two of which I had met previously but had completely forgotten about - my bad, girls!) those worries drifted right away.

We headed back to the hotel for some drinks and a few games before getting ready to go out for the main bar hopping event. Everyone looked AMAZING, so of course we had to celebrate by doing an impromptu photo shoot! In addition to the cutesie decorations, there was a confetti champagne bottle popper and we were attempting to recreate a photo Amanda found on Pinterest. To practice for the champagne pop self-timer photograph we were throwing regular confetti and I was extremely happy that I decided to bring my big camera along. We were not happy for the huge mess it created; our hotel room was trashed with confetti.

Next up was making our rounds through the city. No one got too crazy and it ended up being a pretty chill evening.

^^ This place was def a swingers bar. At first we.. or maybe just me.. were feeling sophisticated since they required a dress code and had rules like "one drink minimum" to stay.

This old gal can still have a good time. Some of the bars/clubs in Chicago are open until 5am which I did not know or expect. Definite bags under my eyes after those 36 hours, but well worth it. Now to wait for the wedding in October!



#miss2smith
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