A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

Tuesday morning we were up early to catch the train to downtown Chicago.   My sister brought Chiara and Mira along when she drove us to the train station.  It was sad to leave the kids after our stay with them, but it was also exciting to be going to the city.  I’d heard so many good things about Chicago from so many different people that I was genuinely looking forward to our stay.

For some reason, the train showed up on the other side of the platform, so the whole lot of us waiting to go to the city had to race under the tracks and up to the other side.  Luckily we made it in time.  It felt like we were on the Amazing Race.  Once we were on, the rest of the ride went smoothly.  We arrived downtown in just over an hour and caught a taxi to our hotel - The Sofitel.

Even though we arrived much before their posted check-in time, we were able to get our room.  The hotel had a real trendy feel to it which I really liked.  The room was also quite nice, with the bathroom being totally awesome.  The bathroom alone was about the size of the rest of the room.  It had a separate tub, shower, and a toilet with a phone - for those really important calls.

Before leaving Saskatoon, we bought a couple GoChicago cards.  They each cost just under $100 and gave you admission to the majority of tourist attractions in Chicago.  Since we were planning on hitting at least two attractions per day, we would easily get our money’s worth.

We got our game plan together for the day before leaving the hotel.  We decided to focus our attention on Chicago’s Waterfront.  The Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium were the choices for the day.  Since our hotel was in the heart of downtown, and just off of Michigan Avenue, a.k.a. The Magnificent Mile, we decided to just hoof it to the waterfront.

After about an hour we approached the Shedd Aquarium.  With our GoChicago cards we had a special admission line which allowed us to bypass the regular admission line.  That was nice.  The aquarium had your basic stuff found in other aquariums, and we spent our time checking out all of the exotic fish, turtles, etc.  The aquarium also housed a couple Beluga whales, dolphins, penguins, and a large variety of sharks.  Due to some confusion, we didn’t get a chance to see the dolphin show from the presentation area, but we did get to see it from under the tank (which obviously is not as good).  We were going to stick around for the next show, but it was getting to be late in the afternoon, and we wanted to still hit the Adler Planetarium.

Luckily it was just a few hundred metres away so we didn’t waste much time getting there.  It was about four o’clock which would allow us to only see two shows.  Well as it turned out, our GoChicago cards only gave us admission to two of the shows per day anyway, so that worked out quite fine.  We saw The Night Sky Over Chicago and Cosmic Collisions which were both very good.  We ripped through the exhibits between the shows, but I would have liked to have spent a little more time there.  The planetarium was huge and you definitely would need a good chunk of the day to see everything.

It was just after six o’clock by the time we were done so we decided to spend the rest of the evening shopping on the Magnificent Mile.  I managed to buy a few things, but didn’t go overboard which I easily could have.  It was now past nine o’clock and we hadn’t eaten anything since lunch so we figured we’d better do something about that.

We passed tons of restaurants as we moved back towards the hotel.  We’d check out the menus, and even though they sounded good we’d just continue on.  Before we knew it we were back at our hotel and still hadn’t eaten.  We were now starving and the hotel’s menu didn’t do it for us.  We decided to head back to the last restaurant we saw, The Cheesecake Factory.  Michelle had eaten at one somewhere else and she said it was solid.

I ordered a hamburger and this thing was HUGE.  There’s no way I could have eaten this thing on a normal day, but since my stomach was now eating itself I was able to completely destroy the burger.  It also helped that it was delicious.  This burger has now moved to the number one spot on my Burger Delicious Metre.  I was even able to pack some delicious cheesecake into my gut for dessert.  By the time we got back to the hotel, my stomach was about to explode so it seemed best to go to call it a night.

On another note, the Apple Store is right on the Magnificent Mile and it was lined up every time we passed it.

I just don’t understand lining up to get into a store when there is no special release going on.

You can see more pictures from the day by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr