Weekend in Chicago

This month is mine & Robbie's 5th wedding anniversary. So we took a 3-day weekend & flew up to Chicago. Robbie has been twice before on guy's baseball trips & I've never been, so it was a fun weekend getaway, just the 2 of us.

 

We stayed at the Dana Hotel & Spa. Completely amazing! Robbie & I don't take a lot of trips just the 2 of us, so when we do, we love to stay at smaller, boutique type hotels. I love their charm & uniqueness! We flew out of Birmingham Thursday evening & thankfully had a direct flight right into Chicago.

 

View from our hotel balcony. The weather was overcast that day, which is why that picture looks gloomy.

 

Friday, we spent the day shopping around the Magnificent Mile. I loved it! Of course when you are shopping to actually buy something, is the one time you can find nothing that just really works. I ended up purchasing nothing on Friday. (Oh but don't worry. There was no way I was going home empty handed. On Sunday we swung by Tory Burch for some much needed new shoes!) But we still had a great time just walking around the city and shopping.

 

Friday night, we had dinner reservations & then went to  a comedy show at Second City. 

Friday night before dinner

 Second City was awesome! Our show reservation was at 8:00, but due to dinner running a little over, we got there a little closer to starting time than planned. Seating is first come first serve where they sit you, so we figured we'd be in the back. To our surprise (and not planned by Robbie), they sat us in the very front row. For the first time, I got to watch a live performance of something without having to peer around someone tall in front of me!

My knees were literally touching the stage

Our view

 The show was great & now I just need one of the performers to become famous, so I can say I saw them before they made it big!

There was a table behind us with 3 girls, who were actually eating at the show.
Everything in there is very tight & close together.
Poor things, I'm pretty sure my hair was in their pizza the whole night!

 Saturday we went to Wrigleyville. It was cold & I really didn't care anything about seeing the baseball game (and Robbie will be back up in a few months on a guys trip, in which they actually go into the stadium, so he didn't care either). We just walked around and took everything in.

 

Chicago lunch food. Other than pizza, it is not really a plain eaters place delight. I swear they just pile on everything they can think of, and then a few more things and its this wonderful sandwich that everyone goes crazy about. I'm sure it is good, but it grosses me out just looking at it, so I'll just take Robbie's word that overstuffed sandwiches and Italian beef sandwiches are some of the most delicious sandwiches on earth. Example - here is Robbie's sandwich at lunch on Saturday from Lucky's. Look how high it is & how much food is piled on it.  

They even put the french fries on the actual sandwich as a topping

 And here is mine. A plain grilled Cajun chicken breast. It looks so sad. It was actually really good, I just felt so silly getting mine so plain when everyone else around seemed perfectly contempt with putting their fries on their sandwich. To each their own.

But the food in Chicago really was good. Even my plain sandwich on lunch Saturday and my plain hotdog on lunch Sunday (I got a wild hair & let them put chili & cheese on it!). Our dinners were amazing and Robbie did a great job picking out the restaurants. Plus, our lunch meals were probably pay back for all the times I drag him to CFA for lunch! 

Saturday night before dinner

 On Sunday afternoon, we headed back to Birmingham. It was a wonderful & relaxing weekend and a perfect way to celebrate our upcoming 5 year anniversary.