Day 6 - Chicago Part 1

Hey everyone!! So we made it safely to Chicago late last night at like 11:30 pm central time. This was my first experience ever with driving through a different timezone. Very cool to gain an hour while driving. In Chicago we are staying with a family friend and they are just the nicest people ever. We pretty much have a bachelor pad in the basement that we are hanging out in for the next few days.

So this morning I woke up and went to the gym with Nancy and John. Ran about 2.5 miles on the treadmill and did some free weights. I let Ryan sleep in today cuz he was pretty tired from yesterdays activities. So when we got back from the gym we showered and got ready for our trip into Chicago. Nancy and John told us to try a local placed called Potbellies. It is a local sub shop that originated in Chicago. Ryan got the ham sub and I got an Italian. Boy were the sandwiches good. They tasted kinda like Quiznos but better. We also got 1 black and white milk shake which was out of this world. We were fighting over it so we decided to get a second. Yum!!!!!

From there Ryan and I bought a 3 day transit pass and headed downtown. Our 1st stop was the Chicago Lock and Architecture tour. We got a little detoured on our way there and missed the 2:15 tour by like 3 minutes. So I stood in the express computer line to try and get tickets for the next tour. Unfortunately, the 3pm cruise was sold out so Ryan and I decided to take the 4:30. However, the strangest thing happened when I got the tickets from the express line. The tickets came out of the machine without me even having to put in any money or slide my credit card through. Upon further investigation, the tickets said the purchase was made from an Amex card. And I don't have an Amex card. Turns out the guy before me slide his credit card through but never bought any tickets. When I went to get mine it thought I was the other guy and charged the tickets to his account. Long story short, we ended up with a free boat cruise and I felt really bad for this guy. It was an honest mistake and I didn't know what the hell was going on. Ryan and I tried to find the guy but couldn't...what can you do?

To kill some time while we were waiting for the lock tour we decided to walk up Michigan Avenue (The Magnificent Mile) and check out the Apple store. Boy was the place crowded!! There had to have been over 100 people in this two leveled store. Crazy! Once we were done in the store we made our way back to the dock and set sail on our lock tour. It was a pretty cool experience to get on the boat, go through the locks, and see the boat rise upward (only 1.5 feet from the Chicago River to lake Michigan, but we could still feel it). We got some really sweet pictures of the Chicago skyline from lake Michigan. I would recommend this tour to anyone who visits Chicago because not only do you go out onto the lake but you also get a full history less on all of the cool buildings in Chicago. Word on the street is that a new building is being built that will be the tallest building in the eastern hemisphere. Also, another little nugget of information: in Chicago Lincolns park has a statue of Grant and in Grant Park there is a statue of Lincoln. When the parks were built the statues were taken to the wrong place and it cost too much money to move them so they just left them. Weird eh...?

So after the boat tour Ryan and I went down to the Taste of Chicago and had a fried Italian steak. It was quite tasty to be really honest. Didn't know what to expect, but it tasted like an awesome chicken parm sandwich. From there we sat in Grant Park (the one I talked about above) and watched the free Counting Crows concert. We couldn't see the stage cuz it was so crowded, but it was just nice to sit and listen to some good music.

Once the concert was over we headed back to our bachelor pad. The walk from the subway to the place we are staying really made me want to move to Chicago. We walked up a street called 'Dameon', which is apparently a very hip part of the city. I would have to agree because there seems to be a happenin bar or club on every corner. We really should have gotten Ryan a fake ID. :) Well its getting late and Ryan and I have a packed day tomorrow. We are headed to the Sears tower and then back to the Taste of Chicago to see the Wallflowers tomorrow night. Check back in for more about those things. Have a good one!