Well Chicago is an exciting city... but for some reason she did not want us to visit her! We missed our train at 11am... It was actually a hilarious moment. The women who worked at Amtrak were yelling at us to get on the train, the parking guy was telling us to move our car... and next thing I know... ZOOM the train takes off! But we decided to make the best of it. We went for lunch in Greektown, visited the Heidelberg Project, shopped at Fairlane Mall, walked around Dearborn... and then finally we caught the train around 6:30. But let me tell you... AMTRAK IS NOT WORTH IT. It was a terrible ride. With late arrivals, various stops, signals lost, hotdogs in bags and who knows what else... we didn't get into Chicago until 1am! Oh and I left my hat on the train :(
Recommendation: The Go Chicago Card isn't worth the money unless you plan on visiting a ton of places. We planned on it, but it is really hard to get through all these buildings. We started at the Field Museum. Note: It's free to see the normal exhibits... don't pay for a special one unless you are really interested. We payed for the mammoth exhibit which was really interesting, but the exhibit we were all enthralled with was The Evolving Planet, which was free. Not only did they have amazing artifacts but it was a learning experience. Very cool. It was exhausting but very entertaining. Next we visited Buckingham Foundation, sang a bit of “Love & Marriage” and then moved on to Chess Records... now known as Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven. However, it wasn't open....
For the evening James picked an awesome bar called the Empty Bottle; it was in the Ukrainian district. The first band was Heart Shaped Hate. Awesome 2 piece female group: drums and synthesizer. They were a mix between Yeah Yeah Yeahs, You Say Party, We Say Die... and some hardcore band... awesome to see females rock out like that. The headlining band was called Screaming Females. Not only were they entertaining and catchy, but the female who fronted the band could “wail” in the words of Boh. I highly recommend checking them out. They will be big. Oh and to recommend the bar... awesome venue with low price drinks. What more can you ask for?
Sunday was beautiful. We scored a 90 degree day. We went to Millennium Park, Navy Pier, Magnificent Mile and The John Hancock Observatory (Signature Lounge on the 96th floor). We went cheap on the day. Millennium Park is free, Navy Pier is free to walk around.. and the water taxi is only 4 bucks and very cool, and the 96th floor bar is free... although the drinks and food are super expensive... the view makes it worthy.
Back at the hotel we ordered pizza from a “world famous” pizza joint called Giordanos. It was pretty good, but I just am not a fan of deep dish pizza... a bit too much dough for my liking. After dinner and drinks we headed down to a bar called Blue Chicago. There was a great blues group playing... my favourite was the drummer. We heard the bars were open until 5am, but unfortunately we didn't know that they aren't open until 5 on a Sunday. So we roamed the streets asking people of any bars open and playing music. We were hunting some reggae bar that we heard about... and somehow we actually managed to find it. It was called Underground Wonder Bar. Awesome music venue with $3 Red Stripe on Sunday and open until 5am... on a Sunday. Incredible.
Our last stop on Monday was Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven. It was the original recording studio of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Buddy Guy and so many others. The tour was 10 bucks, which was a only a movie and you walking around the building. But it was really cool to be in the room where so many hits were recorded. I would definitely love to visit Chicago again!
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