After going to Myrtle Beach my freshman year, and Ireland my sophomore year, going to Chicago can seem like a bit of a letdown for a spring break trip, but since I went absolutely no where last year, it was a nice little getaway.
Mom and I spent two nights at the Silversmith Hotel, right across from Millennium Park. I bought it through Priceline (seriously, I love their Name Your Own Price function), so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was quite lovely. The hotel was sort of "U" shaped, and our room was on the inner part of the "U", so we heard none of the city noise: no traffic, no trains, nothing! Since my mom is a very light sleeper, this was much appreciated. The hotel was full of old-world charm, and had a very efficient and pleasant staff. My only complaint is that it didn't have a hot tub...my feet were aching after walking around so much.
Since my mom and I are both museum fanatics, we spent most of the trip exploring our favorite museums. We are no strangers to Chicago, but it had been a good four or five years since we had really been here, it was fun to visit the old standbys. We spent the first day entirely at the Museum of Science and Industry, which is one of my favorite museums in the entire world. I beat my mom at the "Relaxation Brain Waves" challenge, which proves my yoga sessions are paying off, and we thoroughly enjoyed the new-ish submarine exhibit. Possibly more enjoyable than seeing the actual submarine, however, was watching the time-stop video on how they moved it from the beach to the new bunker inside the museum. Can you imagine seeing a thousand ton submarine just perched on the beach of Lake Michigan?
Day Two was spent at Shedd's Aquarium and the Field Museum. I should preface by saying I love aquariums of any nature, so Shedd's is always a welcome stop. My favorite exhibits this time around were the shark tank and the ray pond. If I ever win an insane amount of money, I want my own stingray aquarium. Their little faces always look so smiley! The Field Museum was pretty cool too. After spending most of the day at Shedd's, the "stuffed animal" exhibits (what I call the taxidermy sections) were a bit...well, lackluster. However, the feature Mummy exhibit was well worth the extra cost, and Mom and I both enjoyed seeing Sue, the T-Rex, and walking through the Native American exhibits. She did end up poking fun at me at the shoe exhibit, since I was picking out old styles of boots that I would love to wear today (Tibetans have the coolest footwear! And I don't even really like shoes!) When we got all done, we wandered around downtown Chicago in search of authentic Chicago-style pizza, which we found at Pizzeria Due. It took almost 40 minutes to be seated, plus another half hour for our pizza, but it was well worth it - best Chicago pizza I've ever had.
Our third day was kind of our free day, so we wandered around Millennium Park and the Magnificent Mile. I was thoroughly disappointed to find out Filene's Basement had closed, which means Crate and Barrel is the last of my favorite stores. Still, we went into a bunch of fun stores, and had lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe. After that, I looked at ridiculously fabulous dresses, and we started heading back to Michigan.
Small side note: on our way back, Mom remembered there was an outlet mall in Michigan City, Indiana. Still rather disappointed in my lacking of shopping deals in Chicago, I thought it would be fun. BAD IDEA. Long story short, let's just chalk it up to another episode of why most Michiganders think Indiana is a bass-akwards state. But, we survived, we were not abducted, and while I found nothing, Mom scored some cool inside-joke shirts for my brother and grandfather.
All in all, not a bad way to spend part of my spring break.
