We stayed downtown in an Embassy Suites hotel which was very nice and in a really good location. After we checked in, we walked down the main street Michigan Avenue to check out one of Chicago's most popular tourist attractions 'the bean'. It's actually a piece of artwork called 'Cloud Gate' by Anish Kapoor but it's known by everyone as ' the bean' because it basically looks like a shiny bean.
After posing for loads of photos with the bean we walked around the rest of the Millennium Park. The Taste of Chicago food festival was taking place in the parks around the lake front so there were lots of barriers up stopping us getting to different parts of the park. Eventually we managed to get to the Buckingham Fountain which is another famous Chicago landmark.
For Friday evening we'd booked a Segway tour. We thought it would be a good way to see the city while having loads of fun. When I've seen other people on Segways I thought it looked really easy, I didn't realise it was all about balance. You basically have to transfer your weight forwards and backwards to make the Segway move and stop. To start with we all had some wobbly moments but soon got the hang of it. Our tour guide was good fun and led us all through the parks and along the lake front. There was a free concert going on in the park so we stopped off for a few minutes to watch Rob Thomas from the band Matchbox 20.
On Saturday morning we had planned to hire a rental car to drive out of Chicago to the town of Joilet to go to the wedding reception of one of Matt's friends from DC. Matt is usually very organised but he was being very laid back about this trip so hadn't booked a car in advance. Saturday morning he started ringing around car rental companies and after about 10 mins on the phone he announced to me and Chris that we could have a problem - there wasn't a single hire car available in the Chicago area! Matt phoned his friend in Joilet and managed to find out that we could get a train there later in the morning instead so the panic was over.
As we had a bit of time to kill that morning we went to America's tallest building, the Sear's Tower or the Willis Tower as it is now called. I'm not keen on tall buildings so I went to have a coffee while Chris and Matt went up to in it. It looked like they had some good views from the top...
Chris even stood on the glass floor...
After the Sear's Tower we found the train station and got on our train to Joilet. None of us had a clue where we were going so when we arrived we jumped in a taxi and told the driver the address of where we needed to be. Now Joilet isn't a big town but he gave us a completely blank look as though he had no idea where to go. Somehow he eventually managed to get us to the right place. Chris and I had never met Matt's friends Matt and Melissa so we felt a bit awkward going to their wedding reception but luckily it was very informal and everyone was friendly.
The trains weren't running very often from Joilet back to Chicago so after a couple of hours we thought we'd better book a taxi to get back to the train station otherwise we were going to have a 2 hour wait for another train. Matt went off to phone a taxi and a few minutes later came back and for the second time that day announced that we could have a problem as none of the taxi companies were picking up their phones. The groom heard Matt say this and told us not to worry he'd get someone to take us back to the station. At this point we had about 20 minutes to make our train and it was about 15 minutes back to the station. The bride's brother offered to give us a lift so we piled into his car and got to the station with about a minute to spare. Despite a tramp getting in our way on the stairs to the platform we managed to jump on to the train with seconds to spare. Phew!
On Sunday morning we took the 'El' train to Wrigley Field the famous baseball stadium. We had planned to do a tour but when we arrived they told us they weren't running any on that day despite the fact that Chris had phoned up and checked before hand. Very annoying! So instead we wondered around the outside of the ground then got the 'El' train back to downtown to do a boat tour. Chicago has some amazing architecture and the tour we did covered the river and lake so we managed to see alot of the buildings and found out more about them.
These were my two favourite buildings the Wrigley building (left) and the Tribune Tower.
Later in the afternoon Chris and Matt went up the Hancock Tower while I went to the Art Institute. We met back at the hotel and decided as it was Independence Day we'd go out for an early dinner before going to see the fireworks. Earlier in the day Chris and Matt had tried to book somewhere for dinner but couldn't find anywhere that was taking reservations. We were hoping to try some famous Chicago pizza but everywhere had about a 1.5-2.5 hour wait! We eventually found a nice steak restaurant a bit further out which we managed to get seated at straight away.
After the meal we walked towards the lake to watch the fireworks. On every street corner there were lots of police so it looked like they were expecting trouble. We were expecting to get caught up in seas of people but as we got up to the lake it really wasn't that busy at all. We were all a bit disappointed by the fireworks but at least the crowds were not as bad as we thought they were going to be.
On Monday we walked to Lincoln Park to visit the free zoo. It was really hot so lots of the animals were cooling down in the pools in their enclosures, here is the polar bear going for a dip...
After the zoo we walked to one of the beaches on the lake and then back along the lake front to our hotel before catching our flight home.
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