So after much worries on Valentine's Day with the ice storm we got, we received an email from Southwest telling us that we will be departing on time. We packed and drove in the dark to the airport, sipping extra rich hot chocolate, anticipating the fun we are going to have. Our flight left 20 minutes late, which is not bad for any airlines, and arrived to a very sunny Chicago around 8:30. We took the El (their subway system, except it's elevated up, instead of under ground, hence the nick name El) into the city and checked in to the Hotel. Did I mentioned that I got the hotel for 80 bucks? Priceline, baby, Priceline!!! The Hotel is located right by the El and we didn't even have to go out in the cold to get to it! And it's in downtown so it was close to EVERYTHING! SWEET!
The view from my hotel room
Of course, we were way early, but they let us checked in anyways because it was a Thursday and they weren't that busy. We then found some place to eat, right next to our hotel - it's like a little mall food court place, except it's much better than food court and cheap! Needless to say, we ate there for breakfast any chance we got!
So while we were in Chicago, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry and the Field Museum - for free! We belong to the Boston Museum of Science and they participate to a lot of science museums around the country. We sure got our money worth. In the Museum of Science and Industry, the one exhibit worth mentioning is the U505 - The German U-boat captured during World War II. We got to go inside the U-Boat, but was not allowed to take any pictures. I did take one from the outside though:
U505 U-Boat
The thing is so huge I ran out of the room to back up in order to get the whole thing in! oh well. If you are ever in Chicago and want to find something to do, I think this is a piece of history that you shouldn't miss.
In the Field Museum, there are couple of things that were really cool - First is the real dinasour bone and real elephants displayed in the museum.
Real dinasour head!!!
Two REAL elephants!! Yeah, I am miniscure compare to them!
They also had a gorilla and a mountain cat as well. I don't know what happened to my pictures though...
The second part of it is the Egypt tombs... They have REAL mummies in the museum!!!!! It really was a history on how mummies started and why they mummified others and how they did it before they figured out to preserved the dead the way they did then.
There is a real dead person in there!!!!
I actually was pretty freaked out by the mummies, thinking they are gonna come to live and... yeah, I definitely watched too much TV...
We of course couldn't miss out on shopping at Chicago! We went to Loopy Yarn first. It was a cute shop that is definitely bigger in the inside than the way it feels from the outside. The shop wasn't too busy on that Friday afternoon. When I first walked in, I was welcomed by several people who works there, and the first thing you see in the shop are patterns - nicely displayed, organized patterns. I wish all of my LYS are as organized!!! Then I saw the yarn - there weren't any labels on each cube, but each skein/ball was labeled individually - weird thing though, the label are always right on the names of the yarn companies and the yarn names, which I find it a little annoying. The yarn were seperated by the brand but were group in the same area for similar contents. They had a whole section for vegan, non-wool section - a really good selection for cotton, silk, linen, bamboo, soy and some other ones. In the back of the shop, they had a section for 40% off!!! I of course could not resist on NOT buying anything, especially it's on sale...
Loopy Yarn located right on the El
My New Stash!!! 7 skeins each of the Dolce Mohair and 1 skein of Dali
I plan on using theDolce Mohair Purple Lilac, Pink Selfstripe for Baltic Sea Stole and the Blue White Selstripe for Clapotis. The Dali is going to be a scarf mixing with the other green mohair I aquired awhile ago.
After departing the yarn shop (David made me, otherwise I would still be in it!) we went up to Michigan Ave for a little regular shopping. We went into the building where the Lego store was... We saw some of the coolest lego constructions:
Did you know that Lego now makes "Winter Wonderland" targeting girls??? I didn't!
David with my yarn bag sitting next to the Lego guy
I'm sitting with the Lego old lady
Oh, I also have to mention this place:
Yes! Chipotle is SOOO GOOD! and inexpensive! They had the best non-homemade Guacamole I've EVER had and I am VERY PICKY about my Guacamole! Awesome Hot Sauce too! The whole thing is just an experience! Clean restaurant and inexpensive. I suggested them to come local so all my friends can enjoy them too!
Friday night, we rented a car and drove up to Michigan to see David's brother and his family. We were SOOO tired by the time we got there we just went to sleep! Saturday morning, we decided we should do this while snowing:
That was a big helmet!
It is the first time I've done snowmobiling and I really like it! I had a lot of fun. Colin and Page had fun too, although not snowmobiling, but definitly sleding :)
Page and Colin
Sunday we got up really early and drove back to Chicago for our flight home. While on the highway, David pullover and took a picture:
See anything wrong with this picture?
The picture was taken from the rear view mirror, pretty good for a rear view mirror shot, huh?
We got home in the early afternoon, but we were beat! And we definitely did not want to go back to work the next day!!! And we are definitely looking forward to our next trip, which is only a few days away!!!
And I want to leave you with these:
Bruno and Mick sharing the same space to go night night
Vanilla sleeping in Bruno's bed... how she curls herself in that little bed is beyond me.
1 comment:
You have finally posted. I have waited for so long. It's funny to me that I took some exact pictures like yours when last time I visited chicago. I took the pictures of the U505, the mummies, the Lego store (Andrew is a big Lego fan, we had to go), the Lego spider, I sat next to the Lego man with bird poop on his shoulder. I also remember those wooden train stations, so scary. But I didn't go to any yarn store. haha. all the good memories coming back... Looks like you had a very good time.
Oh yeah, I also have read the Yale Daily News, it's very cool that you were in there!! I am jealous.
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