8 Weeks In Asia!: Chicago Aussie Reunion

Chicago has been treating us well. We left off on Friday night when our reunion began to form as Sandra arrived at 2am at our hotel in downtown Chicago. She had quite an adventure braving the "el" from the airport but we are glad she finally made it!

Saturday: We rested Saturday morning and caught lunch at a bakery right underneath the train tracks (quaint, sort of). We wondered the city a little until Char arrived around 1:30pm and we met her on Michigan Ave. It was so great to officially begin our reunion. After getting settled in took the girls through Millennium Park and toured around "the bean" and water fountains.

We walked up Michigan Avenue and decided to go up into the Hancock Building to get a great view of the city. Great views (especially from the bathrooms!) and we relaxed on the 96th floor for a while.

View from the Hancock Tower

Then we walked over the Gino's East for their famous Deep-Dish Pizza. Who knew you could have pizza with a cornbread crust? We still aren't too sure about that meal.

Our Gino's East pizza.

We tried to make it to the Navy Pier fireworks show but wound up catching the finale from the park on the way there (we're really good at timing things, ha).

The one firework captured.

Afterwards we had a night on the town hanging out at a dive bar we happened upon called Rossi's.

Sunday: After wondering around the city a bit, we had lunch at the infamous Billy Goat's Tavern. Those wonderful SNL lines were then quoted for the next 48 hours. "No Fries Chips" "No Pepsi Coke"... and we ate some great double cheezborgers. yum!

Our awesome Cheezborgers.

It was a gorgeous day so we walked down to Navy Pier and mingled amongst the crowds. We all loved the ambiance and views of the city as we relaxed at the tip of the pier for an hour or so.

View of the city from Navy Pier.

The gang at Navy Pier.

Eventually we took a bus back into the city where we sat at ESPNzone long enough to realize the note on our table saying "because of the excitement of today's game there will be a minimum charge of $10 per person, per hour." So it didn't take us long to finish a beer and get to Harry Caray's before the start of the Lakers game. We hungout there for the basketball game and then headed on home... we wanted to get an early nights rest because of the Cubs game on Monday...

Monday: Well, there was no Cubs game. After traveling up to Wrigleyville and noticing the lack of additional Cubs fans, we figured out that we had the schedule wrong.

We asked around though and found a great sports bar called Murphy's right beside the stadium that had awesome burgers and tots.

After a while, we took the "el" back towards the city where we stopped in Lincoln Park for some shopping and relaxing. Then we made several stops at fun parts of town and eventually stopped back by the hotel to change for our last dinner together :(

By 10pm we arrived at Giordano's for another dinner of Deep-Dish (luck for us this time the crust was not made of cornbread). We had a fabulous time reminiscing and eating lots of pizza. By lots of pizza we mean 1 slice, because it is seriously soooo filling, but delicious. We went back to our favorite bar Rossi's and explored a couple new places around Michigan Ave before heading back to the Hilton.
*Stay tuned for updated pictures from this day: we're having some technical difficulties.

Tuesday: We had to check out today by noon, so we all had a bunch of packing to do. Then we had a short excursion to Buckingham Fountain after a breakfast at Jamba Juice and Baci's.

We made our way back to the hotel to rest for a bit in the gorgeous lobby before having to say goodbye to Sandra, and then Char.

The sad conclusion to our reunion.

It was so sad to see them go- best reunion ever (thanks for coming Scott). We've just been hanging out, running some last minute errands for the trip and saying our goodbyes to Chicago. We cannnnnnot believe we leave for CHINA tomorrow! Our flight is Wednesday at 10:30am (hopefully), so keep us in your thoughts.