Chi-town wrap-up. part one.

so i promised a trip post over a week ago. here it is. not that anyone's reading this. oh well.

we left on thursday, very early. since we did our trip with priceline, we got to pick our hotel, but not our flights. so thursday was spent going through atlanta, then to o'hare.

we arrived at our hotel, the intercontinental, at like, 730ish. so we quickly unloaded and set up our room, and headed out for some dinner. the concierge showed us a few places on a map, and we ended up at an italian (shock, i know) place called bice (that's bee-chay for you americanos). it was fabulous, a little expensive, but so nice and quiet and delicious. we took a long walk after dinner and stopped at walgreens for snacks and breakfasty things. we knew it would be easier to just get a big entenmans (sp?) danish and a half gallon of juice for our breakfast. this way, we could just lay around in our pjs extra long in the morning, and not feel rushed to get ready to go out for breakfast-and not have to pay for room service.

now, about our hotel. it could not have been more perfect. four stars, giant, comfy king size bed, a red velvet couch, flat panel plasma tv, 18th floor=great view. right in the middle of the magnificent mile (michigan ave. and illinois for any chicago-ites).

friday- we wanted tickets to wicked. the concierge told us our best bet for last minute tix was to head to the theater box office as close to 10 am as we could. so, we slept in, had our walgreens room breakfast and headed out. the weather was perfect. sunny, 80s, beautiful. like late march/early april here. we secured tickets for that night.

we then rode a water taxi- much cheaper than the tour boats- same scenery, out to navy pier.

it was nice, a bit warm, but we found out while there that fireworks were scheduled for saturday night. we knew where we'd go saturday- back to navy pier for fireworks and the ferris wheel.

here's the view from navy pier ---->

we made reservations for dinner at shaw's crab house. really fabulous. and a classic chicago looking restaurant. rich cherry wood booths/tables, white linens, servers in black with white aprons. and the food- we love seafood and this was all great. then.........

wicked was amazing! i'd never seen the show, just heard about it from students. but we both loved it. then, another slow walk home. it was just lovely to enjoy each other's company.

we realized this night that we could actually call each other by our first names for the next few days- no more mommy and daddy- we could be matthew and tia again for a while! sad, but true.