A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

Our flight back to Saskatoon was not until three o’clock which was a nice bonus. It’s rare that I don’t have an early morning flight. We were up relatively early and got all of our stuff packed up before heading back out to do some last minute shopping. Michelle wanted to find a dress for one of our many weddings this summer.

As it turned out the shops didn’t open until ten o’clock so we just killed time. Michelle tried on a few dresses at Anne Taylor which I thought looked pretty good. She said they were “mom” dresses and that they were something she would like in her closet about five years from now. After failing at the dress shopping we headed back to an Abercrombie & Fitch store where she picked up nice soft shirt. Their shirts are so soft.

It was getting close to noon so we decided to get back to the hotel and checkout. We jumped in a cab and were on our way to O’Hare International. This was where our trip really took a turn for the worse. Luckily it was at the end of it. After lining up at the Air Canada check-in at Terminal 2, we find out that our flight is being operated by United Airlines out of Terminal 1.

So we book it over to Terminal 1 and use their totally non-intuitive manual check-in system which no one can seem to figure out. We are then told that we are departing from Terminal 2. WTF? So we head back over to Terminal 2. We found our gate which had about five chairs in the waiting area.

We hadn’t eaten yet so we grabbed something at a McDonald’s in the terminal - the first thing that seemed to function efficiently. Our next mission was to find a Duty Free store. We were ready to give up after walking up and down the terminal twice. I then noticed a cart off to the side of a hallway with a sign “Duty Free Store”. Was this actually the Duty Free store in one of the biggest airports in the world? We bought a couple bottles of spirits and went to wait for our flight at a different gate (since ours had no seating).

Boarding time quickly approached so we headed back over to our gate to see a huge line. As it turned out they were loading three separate flights (with slightly different departure times) through the same gate. I’m not sure why United thought it was strange when people were nearly missing their flights as they were stuck at the end of this monstrous three plane queue.

Then we heard an announcement saying that you couldn’t line up until you had your passport checked by a United person. As more confusion filled the gate people started another line for a United lady to look at our passports and circle our name on the boarding passes.  WTF? No one was sure what this was accomplishing as we got back in line to board.

After being reprimanded by the gatekeeper that we were giving her too many documents when getting her to check our boarding pass, we were finally on our way to getting on the plane - or so we thought. We went down some stairs and were now out on the tarmac where we proceeded to walk for about five minutes to our plane which was likely back at Terminal 1.

We finally got onto the plane and I thought that this nightmare was over. Nope. As it turned out one baggage cart never arrived. Two people were sent on different occasions to get the cart but never returned. Finally after an hour of us sitting on the stifling hot airplane, the baggage manager found the cart and we were on our way. Brutal.

Despite having to deal with a flight attendant giving us misinformation about going through customs once we got to Winnipeg, the flight was pretty much normal. We touched down in Saskatoon where Jeffrey was waiting to give us a ride home.

As you can guess Michelle and I loved Chicago. I had heard so many people talk so highly of this city and now I know why. The waterfront is so beautifully developed and there is just so much to do. I always remember people saying that Chicago is what Toronto could have been. Now I know what they mean.

As a wrap-up, I just want to thank Yavini and Kevin for being so hospitable to Michelle and I for the few days we spent in St. Charles. It was awesome to spend time with them and the kids.  And now we are really  looking forward to our next trip to Chicago.  Having gotten through a lot of the touristy stuff on this trip we can focus on some of the more obscure gems that the city has to offer.

All of the photos from the trip can be seen in my Flickr account.

• Chicago - Day 2
• Chicago - Day 3
• Chicago - Day 4
• Chicago - Day 5
• Chicago - Day 6
• Chicago - Day 7

When I woke up Thursday morning I was absolutely starving so Michelle and I walked to a nearby restaurant for a nice outdoor breakfast.  While sitting at our table I noticed a familiar face being seated at the table next to ours.  Being a sports fan I immediately knew that this guy was Michael Wilbon, a famous sports personality for ESPN and the Washington Post.

From Wikipedia,

In his career, Wilbon has covered 10 different Summer and Winter Olympic Games for The Washington Post, every Super Bowl since 1987, nearly every Final Four since 1982 and each year’s NBA Finals since 1987.

He also co-hosts the sports talk show Pardon the Interruption (PTI) on ESPN.  Since I watch PTI fairly regularly and am a huge NBA fan, I thought this was pretty cool.  But since he was having breakfast, I didn’t want to bother him so I just got Michelle to take a picture of me with him in the background.  Here’s a shot of me Twittering that “I was having breakfast at the table next to Michael Wilbon”.  For those of you who don’t know him, he’s the guy behind me and on the left.

I’m not sure how many people actually recognized him, but near the end of our breakfast one couple approached him and let him know that, “PTI was their favourite show on TV”.   I still wasn’t comfortable with interrupting his breakfast with his two friends.

After breakfast we caught a city bus to what we thought was the general vicinity of the Sears Tower.  As it turned out, we got off of the bus a little too early and had to walk for almost thirty minutes.  You’d think you’d be able to see the tallest building in the continent from anywhere in the city, but when you’re downtown amongst so many other huge buildings, it’s easy to lose.

We finally got to the 110 story behemoth, showed our GoChicago cards, and got in line for the elevator that would take us up to the observation tower.  This attraction is usually lined up for hours, but since we were in the middle of the week, we were lucky to only have to wait for about ten minutes.  After watching a short History Channel movie about the tower, we rode the elevator to our destination.

The view from the top was pretty sweet.  It reminded me a lot of being at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, but with Chicago being considerably larger, the sight was even more magnificent.  Michelle and I took some photos, and made our way around the observation deck before heading back down to ground level.

Since we had a pretty big breakfast, we decided to skip lunch and catch a bus to Navy Pier, a transformed family entertainment destination on Lake Michigan.  The first thing we did was inquire about the boat tours.  Our first choice was the Shoreline Architectural Tour of downtown via the Chicago River.  It was five minutes to three and luckily the next tour was at three.  Great!  We used our GoChicago cards to get our tickets and figured we’d just get on one of the boats directly behind the ticket station.  As it turned out we needed to make our way to the a different launch.  Once again we got into Amazing Race mode to catch the boat.

Needless to say, we made it in time and the tour was underway.  The one hour tour took us down the Chicago river through downtown while the guide explained many of the architectural wonders that line its shores.  Michelle and I both were incredibly impressed with the boat tour and would recommend anyone in the area to check it out.  It’s totally worth it.  The tour also revealed the origin of the city’s nickname “The Windy City”.  The name is not derived from the city’s apparent high velocity winds, but from of the “long winded” city officials who made their case to host the 1893 World’s Fair.

After the boat tour we walked along the entire pier, basking in the great views it offered.  There is a picturesque fifteen story ferris wheel on the pier which we figured we should ride.  Apparently this Ferris wheel replaced one that was built when Chicago hosted the 1893 World’s Fair.  Each car used to hold sixty people, had built in bar, and a live band.  How cool would that have been?

We were starting to get pretty hungry and tonight was our plan to have a nice dinner on the water.  None of the restaurants on the pier really fit into what we were looking for since they were all family oriented, so we caught a bus back into the heart of downtown.  Apparently during the boat tour, Michelle overheard a conversation about a restaurant called Fulton’s on he River that was supposed to be solid.  Surprisingly we were able to find it.

There was a thirty minute wait since we wanted to sit outside on the water so we were told to sit in the bar and they would come find us when the table was ready.  After inquiring with the hostess after nearly an hour had passed,  we found out that they thought we had left and gave our table away.  After that we were supposed to be next on the list.  Next we saw another party of two walk in and get seated after about two minutes.  Michelle approached the hostess.  It seems that this caught the attention of the head restaurant dude, so he swooped in and took control of the situation, seating us immediately and “taking care” of our drinks.

The rest of dinner was awesome.  The smallest steaks they had were 16oz.  As they say, “when in Rome”.  Something that I found pretty cool was after our waiter had explained  the items on the menu to us, he finished off with this statement - “And if you don’t like anything on the menu, the chef will make whatever you want”.  How awesome is that?  For the record I got the 16oz New York Strip and had no problem eating all of it.

After dinner we decided to go for a nightcap and dessert at the top of the John Hancock Building - Chicago’s third tallest building, known for it spectacular view of the city and America’s fastest elevator.  The view did live up to all of the hype, and looked extra impressive at night.  The funny thing is that the best view is from inside the lady’s washroom.  Michelle can vouch for that.  The men’s washroom had no windows.

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

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr

Wednesday morning we were up by eight o’clock and out of the hotel shortly after nine.  The plan for today was to tour the Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.  We decided to take a taxi to the Field Museum since it was out by the planetarium and aquarium, and we wanted to maximize our time.

The Field Museum was home to “Sue”, the world’s largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton.  We were also able to meet the Lions of Tsavo, the man-eating lions that were made famous in the movie, The Ghost and the Darkness.  The Egyptian exhibition was pretty cool as well.  It contained 23 mummies, and 5000 year old hieroglyphics.  There was also a full-size re-creation of a famous Egyptian tomb.  As cool as these were I think I enjoyed the Evolving Planet exhibition the most which let you walk through the evolution of the planet from prehistoric to present times.

Once we finished up at the Field Museum we took a walk along the shores of Lake Michigan to the Buckingham Fountain.  You may recognize it from the opening of the sitcom Married With Children.  We fired off a few photos, grabbed a hot dog, then continued our journey through Millennium Park.

Millennium Park is Chicago’s newest landmark.  This grand urban park is home to Frank Gehry’s distinctive Pritzker Music Pavilion and the Cloud Gate facade of curled metal in the shape of a bean.  This thing was pretty cool, but kind of weird as well.

There was also two large monoliths called the Crown Fountain covered entirely by changing projections as water fell down them.  Very interesting indeed.   It seems that Chicago residents use them to cool off during those hot summer days.  I would loved to have done this as well, but I didn’t really want to walk around the Art Institute of Chicago while being all wet.

After we finished our walk through the park we came up on the Art Institute of Chicago.  This building was massive and filled with all sorts of art.  The exhibit of the 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms was insane.  This Chicago socialite of the early 20th century seemed to have a lot of time on her hands.  The detail of the rooms was amazing.

The art from all corners of the globe were nice to see, but the two pieces I really wanted to view were the famous paintings American Gothic and Nighthawks.  Michelle and I were most interested in seeing the modern contemporary art galleries, but we had some bad luck since they were all temporarily closed.  Oh well, next time I guess.

When all was said and done at the Institute we walked back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.  We had bought tickets to the musical Wicked, a highly acclaimed show set in The Wizard of Oz universe.  The premise of the show is to explain what led the Wicked Witch of the West to become “wicked”.  It starts before and finishes shortly after the events of The Wizard of Oz.  Both of us thoroughly enjoyed the show.  It kind of reminded me of the story of Anakin Skywalker.   The show was at  the impressive Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre.

After the show we wanted to just have a small bite to eat, and once again we found ourselves walking from restaurant to restaurant.  By the time we reached our hotel, we were both tired and decided to just call it a night.

You can see the rest of the photos from the day by following the links below.

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr

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

Monday my sister was back to work and the nanny was in to watch the kids, so Michelle and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to do some shopping while in St. Charles.  My sister works from home so she took a few minutes out of her day to drive us to an outdoor shopping mall called Geneva Commons.

Before we hit the stores we realized it was just after noon so we figured we’d better grab a bite to eat.  We went to a restaurant in the area and ordered from the lunch menu.  Wow.  I had forgotten how big meal sizes are in U.S. restaurants.  Neither of us were even close to finishing our meals.

There were a lot of great stores in the mall and we found a bunch of great prices on clothing, but we held off on buying anything since we were planning on shopping while in downtown Chicago.  With the U.S. and Canadian dollars being even right now, the considerably lower price of clothing in the States is really hard to pass by.

I was feeling quite parched since It was a super hot day again so we found a place to get a nice refreshing drink.  Many of you may know of Michelle’s great disdain for Starbucks.  She has vowed to never support this establishment.

She was not impressed that I took this picture.

On Sunday we decided to take the kids to the Kane County Fair.  It was raining in the morning, but by noon it had cleared up and the sun came out.  Once we got out to the fairgrounds we realized just how hot of a day it was.  It was in the mid 30s during the few hours we were out there, with almost no breeze.

We started off by taking the kids to the animal petting areas.  We saw a huge Flemish rabbit that looked more like a dog with floppy ears.  We also saw delicious steaks, bacon, veal, and chicken wings.  The kids really liked petting and feeding the animals.  I really liked the thought of eating them.  Mira got a bit of a scare when she was pushed down by a couple of goats who then proceeded to steal the feed we bought for her.  The look of shock on her face remained for about five minutes, but she regained her courage and started mingling with the animals again.

We spent the remainder of the time taking the kids on the rides.  I only went on one, and since I’m not really a “ride” type of person, that was enough for me.  I can’t remember what it was called, but I think it is called the “Himalaya” at the Saskatoon Ex.  I’m pretty sure I have bruised ribs from it…maybe broken.

After we got back to the house we took it pretty easy.  We spent a little time playing with the kids outside, so it seemed like a good opportunity to pull out my big camera and take some pictures.  I was firing them off left and right.  Boy, these shots were going to be fabulous.  After about twenty minutes I realized I didn’t have a memory card in the camera.  Brutal.  At this moment I put a card in and started taking pictures again - treating my previous blunder as a practice session.

By the end of the day everyone was pretty tired and found comfort in their own way.

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

• Thumbnails
• Slideshow

We were up bright and early Saturday morning so we could make our way to downtown Chicago and visit the Museum of Science and Industry. Before heading out, Yavini informed me that Saturdays were reserved for McDonald’s breakfasts. Sounded pretty good to me and I put my order in for a Bacon McMuffin. When they got back, I witnessed a display of utter absurdity.

Her and Kevin made an order for their Egg McMuffins without butter, cheese, or the ham. They then removed the egg portion of the sandwiches, cut out the yokes, and re-fried them. They then fried up some of their own ham for the “McMuffin”, and added some low fat cheese, but not before re-toasting the English Muffin for a more crispy texture. This is all fine and dandy to be health conscious, but I was so confused as to why we didn’t just make the McMuffins at home? To each his own, I guess.

We waited for their nanny Ms. Anna to arrive before we took off. She was going to stay home with young Liam while the rest of us went to the museum. We all piled into the SUV and headed for downtown Chicago. Since the drive was about an hour, we spent the time reading some books we bought for Chiara and Mira.

The lineup to buy tickets into the museum was hilarious. There was probably around a bazzilion people buying tickets, but I will give them credit - the line moved really fast.

The museum had everything from farm equipment to a Boeing 737. One of the cooler things was a captured Nazi U-Boat - the U-505. I’m not sure if this was the submarine that the movie U-571 was based on. The tour of the sub was sold out for the day, so we weren’t able to actually go inside of it.

There was also a live insect display which was pretty freaky. I’m not a huge fan of bugs, so I kept my distance, but Kevin was pretty brave and let an eight inch millipede crawl on him. How would you like to find this thing in your house?

We bought tickets for a 3D show called African Adventure. As I was watching it I was having a really hard time getting anything to look right. As a matter of fact, I was actually starting to feel a little nauseous. I figured there had to be something up with the 3D glasses I was wearing. I finally decided to flip them around and everything came into focus and took their 3D form. Literally, 2 seconds later the show ended. It seems Michelle had the same problem, but she didn’t get her gasses flipped around in time.

We left the museum following the show, and Kevin drove us around downtown, giving us a quick tour of some of the big sites. Before we left their place, he looked up Barack Obama’s address so he could show us “Democrats” his house. I thought the Secret Service were going to stop us for sure when we drove by the house once, turned the SUV around in the street and slowly drove by again - this time with the window rolled down and me (a brown guy with a beard) taking pictures with a big camera and zoom lens.

As far as I know, we weren’t tailed. But I do think a Predator was was in hot pursuit. I managed to capture his thermal imaging of us.

Once we got back to St. Charles, Michelle and I had a quick nap before we headed out for dinner with just Kevin and Yavini. This was a good time for the four of us to just get some visiting in without having to give all of our attention to the three little ones. When we got back to their house, the children greeted us as though we had been gone for three weeks. Everyone was in bed before ten o’clock, but Michelle and I were up real “late” - 11:30pm.

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

• Thumbnails
• Slideshow

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  That’s the noise that greeted me at 3:30 Friday morning as the alaram went off.  We both put the final touches on our packing, got showered up, and were in a taxi by 5am to catch our 6:30 flight to Chicago.  We were greeted by a rude Air Canada Jazz check-in attendant who was speaking so softly that I’m not entirely convinced that he wasn’t just moving his lips.   He managed to feed us much dis-information about our trip.

I had no issues in security despite my backpack full of every type of electronics device you can imagine.  Michelle wasn’t so lucky and was “randomly selected” for a full search.  Apparently the security woman doing the search was really throrough.  The flight went well, but we had less than an hour to pick up our baggage and get through customs in Calgary.  We cut it pretty close, but we did manage to get to the gate as they were boarding the plane.

The new Air Canada planes have in-seat entertainment.  Not satellite TV like WestJet, but an on-demand system which is pretty good.  I watched a couple of HBO comedian acts - David Attel and Bill Maher.  Attel was super-crude, and mediocre.  Bill Maher had me literally laughing my head off with his American political jokes.  People must have thought I was crazy.

The flight was fairly short, and we arrived in Chicago before we knew it. My sister, Chiara, and Mira greeted us at the airport, and we were on our way to their house in St. Charles. We spent the rest of the day just visiting, playing with the children, and eating. Michelle and I were quite exhausted so we had a quick nap before dinner, once we were able to trick the kids into leaving our bedroom. Before calling it a night, Michelle, Yavini, Kevin, and I decided on our plans for Saturday - The Museum of Science and Industry.

Michelle and I fly out to Chicago early Friday morning for our first summer vacation together.  The plan is to visit my sister and her family out in the suburbs for four nights.  I haven’t seen them since last summer when they came out here, so I look forward to seeing them all.  Plus they have never met Michelle so I look forward to that as well.

Once we wrap up our visit, Michelle and I will head downtown where we will stay for the remaining three nights.   We’re staying at   The Sofitel Chicago Water Tower which is right on The Magnificent Mile.  Our time downtown is going to be very busy as we play the tourist role since neither of us have been to Chicago.

I’m going to try and blog each day we’re there, so make sure to keep your eye on A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year.  And as usual, I will be Twittering frequently throughout the day.   You can follow all of my Tweets on my Twitter page.