Back from Chicago!

Currently watching: The Simpsons
Currently drinking: Smart Water
Currently reading: Elle magazine
Currently feeling: a little stuffy- stupid allergies!

I had a bit of a mixed review when it comes to my trip to Chicago. The food and shopping were amazing. However, I found the streets to be absolutely confusing. The homeless people were very aggressive towards us. I had to keep my camera in my purse instead of using it like I wanted to, because the minute the homeless saw the camera it screamed "Tourists!" and they'd come towards us. :/ I found the drivers unbelievably rude and impatient...much worse than even Toronto. I wanted to beat up one guy who was beeping his horn at this car stopped at a RED light. I got even madder when I saw him flick them the finger when they had a small little girl looking out their back window. What a great gesture to teach a child! D: The taxi drivers were even worse!

I fell in love with The Cheesecake Factory and their chicken tacos. Now I wish there was one close to me! It was really cool eating in the bottom of the Hancock tower. Houlihan's was pretty good, as was Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. I was the most excited about going to Pizzeria Uno for some authentic deep dish pizza. Yum-O!

The one touristy attraction that I wanted to see was turned off, by the time I got around to finding it. The Buckingham Fountain was something I really wanted to see, and we finally found it around 10pm on our last night...only to find that it was completely turned off, lights and all. I was very disappointed! So I went to find the giant Chicago Bean sculpture instead. That was awesome! Though I can't help thinking that it should actually be in Boston- Beantown! :)

*I did not take this picture*

Our first night we drove through to Gurnee, IL. There was an outlet mall there that I wanted to go to. It was there that I stayed at the coolest hotel that I have ever stayed at in my whole life. At the Grand Hotel, they had a whole hallway done in cartoon drawings with blacklights. Every room had a theme. We stayed in the Flintstones room, and our room looked like one of the stone houses and had drawings of Fred, Barney, and the gang all glowing under blacklights. So cool! In Chicago, we stayed downtown at the Hyatt and were right beside the start of Magnificent Mile. I shopped 'til I dropped the entire trip!

I went to: Sanrio, Marc by Marc Jacob's, Penelope's, The Container Store, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Saks, TJ Maxx, Target, and sooooo many more that have escaped my mind. In the next few days, I'll update with my purchases and product reviews! :) I had to stock up on Smart Water, Vitamin Water, and few kinds of diet soda that we don't get here as well!

We were supposed to get back Wednesday, but we fell behind schedule. We stopped near the Port of Indiana for Wednesday night. We hit the road again early Thursday and stopped at the Cracker Barrel. I missed it! We got into some nasty snowstorms in Michigan and Sarnia (ON). So we had to stop over again in Cambridge, ON. I had my first escapade in a Canadian Applebee's, and it just was not the same. I'll stick to my Applebee's back home! We made a quick stop at Old Navy for me, as I missed going to the one in Chicago and I needed my fix. Then, I ran into Future Shop (like Best Buy) to buy my hubby's anniversary gift. I got him a 4GB Creative Zen player, because he has been wanting a mp3 player for awhile. Unfortunately my old iPod mini died on him! For my gift, he bought me a Marc by Marc Jacobs purse which I'll talk about in a later post of purchases. :D

Also, I changed the layout again. I think I get bored a little too easily sometimes. Plus, I'm getting ready for some new episodes of Gossip Girl soon! ♥