Rob & Des: Chi-town!

I'm trying to catch this blog up with the present time - I swear.

In July 2013, Rob & I met my awesome friend Maritza in Chicago for sight-seeing and the Taste of Chicago. I absolutely fell in love with the city of Chicago!! If you haven't been - I highly recommend you go ... immediately. Do it, now. More recently, Rob & I took a trip (with Maritza) to New York City. And, while I loved NYC & I'm so glad I finally got to go there, I have to admit - I think I like Chi-town a little better. More on NYC later.

First day - we ate at the famous Gino's East & we shared a famous Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Forgettaboutit!

And then walked around the city enjoying - Northwestern University, the River, the architecture, and Millenium Park by night.

Day 2 - started off with a boat ride around the City. It was mostly on the Chicago River going through the city, but it also went out into Lake Meeeechigan at the end so we got a fantastic view of the City!

(if you look really closely - you can see the sky deck jutting out of the 103rd floor - on the left side of the building - in this picture ... more on that below)

Then, Taste of Chicago! This event came highly recommended to us by a friend & it totally lived up. It was a great street food festival featuring Chicago restaurants. We walked around & sampled food from different vendors, drank beer, got slightly sunburned, burned our mouths off with some of the hottest salsa I've ever tried, and had an all around good time!

We weren't done yet - off to the Willis Tower (or the Sears tower for normal human beings). We did the Sky deck - which is a glorified window that juts out of the building on the 103rd floor. And you go stand in it & pee your pants out of terror & take a picture - and then you get to say that you did it. Maritza & I were all gung-ho about this ... until we were about 5 feet from the window. We both really wanted to chicken out. I mean, this is not a normal thing to be ok with. Standing on glass 103 stories up, looking straight down to the street below. But, Rob wasn't afraid & he dragged us in there before the people behind us in line could get fussy. :) Good job Rob. He's your classic engineer who knows how many factors of safety went into that Sky Deck & he wasn't waivering at all.

(this one is funnier if you can see the entire giant orange "3" that they're sitting on)

(looking straight down)

(this one is funny too - outside the sears tower, they have a garden sculpture - which looks like men's jeans, but they're planters. chicagoans are crazy)

To cap off an awesome day 2 - we went down to the Navy Pier & drank beer and watched the fireworks! So much fun.

Day 3 was mostly getting ready to get on planes & go back home, but Maritza & I managed to sneak in one last walk around town & look at the "Cloud Gate" (the big silver bean) in Millenium Park. We got there early enough on Sunday morning to avoid most of the crowds & there were only one or two people in our shots - instead of 400. :)