Chicago

It's been quite a travel week for me! I've gone the furthest toward the middle of the country I have ever been. And I saw just a few states...

I survived my week of working in Toledo, Ohio, and Friday afternoon I hopped in my rental car and drove the 4 hours west to a city I can't believe I haven't been to yet....Chicago!

My good friend from high school lives in the Windy City so it felt like a good excuse to visit and explore.

We started off strong with some Chicago Deep Dish pizza

It was interesting, but nowhere as good as New York pizza! 

That night we went out in Wrigleyville, the bar area around the famous wrigley field.

The coolest bar we went to had dueling pianos, an arcade, and batting cages

The next morning we woke up early and got a full day of exploring the city. 

First up was the University of Chicago, where my friend's fiancé is a grad student. It was a beautiful campus that reminded me of Princeton

We then took a walk along Lake Michigan to toward downtown

There were tons of cool buildings in the main part of the city 

My favorite was the Tribune building

They had rocks from all over the world in the side of the building, from the coliseum in Rome, to a piece of the Alamo, to petrified redwood from California, to a piece of home

Next we walked back to the lake to explore the park and visit the famous shiny bean

At night, we went to a really good German restaurant that brewed its own beer and had giant pretzels. After that we went to a place called Geek bar, that was full of fun things I loved 

The next morning we woke up and rented bikes and took them along the Lake. It was a perfect day, 75 and sunny.

We decided to do the super touristy thing and go to the top of the Willis Tower, which is the tallest building the the Western Hemisphere, beating the Empire State by 3 floors.

It was a great view, but the coolest was the glass boxes you could go in....over 1500 feet above the street

After that, we continued to explore and fueled ourselves with some Chicago dogs

and continued to see classic Chicago sites

Over all between the two days, we biked just over 14 miles and walked about 18 miles! 

It was definitely a great first visit to the city, and was a place I would go back to...as long as it's not the winter

It's back to California now!