Travelin' Tuesday: Chicago!

Hi friends!

Happy Tuesday!  I wanted to make a post about our trip to Chicago this past summer.  Some of our college friends were getting married back at their home in Springfield, IL so we decided to make the trip and then vacation in Chicago for a few days since it was so close.  It also happened that Nicole and David were going as well and we decided to make the Chicago trek together!  We looked up flight and hotel information and got our flights much earlier than we did hotels and then we Priceline-ed a hotel for $109/night just a few days before.  I actually had a credit card with extra points and I used those to pay for about half of our flight and then we paid for the other half.  So I think we only spent about $300 on our flights out of pocket.

Saturday:

FLIGHT:
We booked our flights from GSP(Greenville-Spartanburg)-->ORD(O'Hare) on Saturday, May 11 at approx. 6am.  We had Clemson Graduations all day the day before, there are 3 in May, so we worked all day--I think I left around 10pm and Kevin left at like 1 or 2am--where we then woke up at 3:30am drove to GSP, about an hour away.  The flight wasn't long, maybe like an hour and a half.

SUBWAY:
Then we had to take the subway to get to the AMTRAK station, which was actually in the city.  It was about an hour subway ride in so it was fun to see the sights and be on the streets for a few minutes.  Did I mention it was CHILLY in Chicago in May?!

TRAIN:
We purchased AMTRAK tickets online--they were $20 each way for each of us, so $80 total.  It was about a 3 hour train ride from the city to Springfield where our friend, Nicole, picked us up from the train station.  We got in a little after noon on Saturday and the wedding was at 6pm.

Sunday:

TRAIN:
Our train then left again about 8:30am so we got back into the city around 12:30pm on Sunday.  We had a short walk to our hotel, the Palmer House Hilton, which was AWESOME!  *Cue passing out because we were exhausted!*

We napped for a little bit, then got up and wandered our way around to a sandwich place for a late lunch.  We met up with David and Nicole and walked over to the lake and decided to walk over to the Navy Pier.  It was just right over there, we could see it.  HA!  It took FOREVER to walk over there but  it was fun, FREEZING, but fun.  We went up on the ferris wheel and got to see the sights.  Then we made our way to the Northwestern Campus to what was called the best Chicago pizza.  It was super deep dish--I prefer New York style--but good nonetheless!  We called it a night and made our way back to our hotel.

Monday:
We got breakfast and decided to go to the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium.  Kevin and I purchased the CityPass booklets, which was $89, and we were able to go to the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the SkyDeck at the Willis Tower, the Planetarium OR the Art Institute, and the John Hancock Observatory OR the Museum of Science and Industry.  The Aquarium was fun, we got access to go to the Sea Lion/Beluga Whale show included, so we did that too!  The Field Museum was SUPER cool, they had like every animal that ever existed stuffed on display.  And a huge TRex fossil!  Ok here are some pictures of the trip below....

This was the sign that welcomed us to Springfield on the train!  

Giant fountain in the park

Brontosaurus outside of the Field Museum 

Ok so David and Nicole were leaving on Tuesday so we had already planned to go to the Cubs game on Monday night.  It was really fun to visit a new baseball stadium, it was a pretty quick subway ride up to Wrigley.  We got hot dogs and beer and froze to death!  It was a great night!  However, this trip was the last time we would see Nicole and David until.....well, we still haven't seen them since, so the subway ride back was sad and we hugged and then got off the subway and I got really sad!  I'm going to keep moving on with the Chicago stuff so I don't get sad again.

Tuesday:
Kevin and I got up and decided to go to the SkyDeck and the Art Institute (and the bean!!).  We also had seen that The Book of Mormon was at one of the Chicago theaters near our hotel so we walked down to get the scoop and ended up deciding to get tickets!  So that night we had drinks at our hotel, went out to dinner and then saw the show--hilarious by the way!  We had a pretty long day and were flying back the next day so we went to bed pretty early.  See some more pics below....

Wrigley Field for Cubs game

Sky Deck at the top of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower)
101 floors in the air!

Art Institute of Chicago

Burger and hot dog hats! 

Wednesday:
We had to check out by 11am so we got up and checked out and had the hotel hold our luggage for us. We went out and wandered around a little more and then picked up our luggage mid-afternoon.  Back to transportation...

SUBWAY:
The subway back to the airport was pretty miserable.  I guess because it was mid-day and not early in the morning, there were SO many more people on it and we had to stand with our luggage for at least half of the trip.  Then we were able to sit but pretty far away from each other.  Not the best experience, but better than paying for a cab I guess.

FLIGHT:
Our flight took off at like 6pm and was about an hour and a half flight again, so we ate at Chili's in the airport and had a drink before we took off.

All-in-all, it was a wonderful trip and I am SO glad to have visited such a fun city!  I would highly recommend visiting if you get the chance.

Until next time....