Chicago Trip, Day 1: The Fun Begins

I have not been a very faithful blogger, but I have a good excuse! We were on vacation!

Last night we arrived home from a very fun-filled time in Chicago with some dear friends. I am very tired - traveling really takes it out of you - but want to recount all the fun we had before I forget. So here goes.

We flew into Chicago at 9am on Friday morning. At the airport we meant our friends Adam and Andrea, gathered our luggage, and proceeded to head to our hotel. We had to navigate from Midway airport to downtown, and of course we had done absolutely no research ahead of time as to how to that. But hey, we figured that if we successfully navigated around freakin' Puerto Rico 4 years ago, we could find our way in a city that spoke English as it's official language! Sure enough we followed the sign that said, "Train to City" and we were not lead astray. Thirty minutes later we were dropped off a few blocks from our hotel.

Sadly, we started off the trip with a bit of a mishap. While walking down the sidewalk - hauling a million tons of luggage - Wes accidentally tripped over a curb and rolled his ankle pretty badly. He limped all the way to The Drake and when we got to our room proceeded to ice that bad boy up!

Here he is on the phone with our friend Jeremy making plans about where to meet. We could all hear Jeremy cackling on the other end as Wes recounted his accident!

Swollen ankle or not, we were ready to explore. We waited for Jeremy and Amy to arrive and then the 6 of us headed out to do a little damage on Michigan Ave. Well, the girls did anyway. The boys got a bit bored and wandered off back to the hotel bar.

That night we headed out to eat at a local Italian place.

Honestly, when we walked in I was a little scared. I mean, it seriously looked like a scene from a mafia movie. When our waiter finally came we didn't know what to do with his unsmiling, grunting demeanor. Finally Jeremy decided to be unfriendly right back and that seemed to make our waiter happy! So we communicated with grunts and one word answers and by the time we left we were fast friends!

I will say that when they brought out the A1 Steak Sauce I had my doubts, but the food ended up being very good - just way too much for me to even make a dent in! (It was a family style restaurant.)

After such a big dinner we elected to skip the cab ride and enjoy a leisurely walk back to the hotel through the busy city.