We arrived late on Friday morning and went straight into the city for lunch. Matt took us to his favourite sandwich shop Perry's. The sandwiches were ridiculously big but very good.
On Friday night we went to a high school football game. Our friend Matt is a bit of a high school football nerd and follows his old high school team really closely. Unfortunately they weren't playing at home but we went to their away game which wasn't too far away. It was so strange to us to see such huge support for high school sport. It was easy to forget that they were school boys, some of them were huge! Unfortunately 'our' team lost but it was definitely an interesting experience.
Saturday morning started with breakfast at The Bongo Room. I had raspberry oreo pancakes. They had oreo crumbled into the pancakes and were covered in vanilla, raspberry and chocolate sauce. They were amazing, my kind of breakfast!
Saturday afternoon we spent at Wrigley Field watching the Chicago Cubs play the St Louis Cardinals. We had been outside Wrigley Field before but had never been inside. It was quite different to how I imagined it to be. It's so small. It was built in 1914 so it's one of the oldest ballparks and it really felt like it. I liked the history of the place but it felt a little claustrophobic at times.
The streets surrounding the ball park all have roof terraces on the top of the buildings providing a little more seating and a fun place to watch the game!
Our next Chicago experience was a trip to The Wieners Circle. The lovely ladies that work in there have really foul mouths and verbally abuse the customers at every opportunity. Quite a unique experience! Our friends hadn't warned us about this and tried to set up Chris for a mouthful of abuse, it didn't quite work, although he did get one hell of a 'are you stupid' type look when he asked what something on the menu was!
On Sunday Chris, Matt and Melissa went to watch a Chicago Bears game. I'm not a football fan so I decided to have a shopping day while they were there. They ended up with some free tickets and had a great time.
Meanwhile I had a successful shopping trip and even came across a flash mob while at the Bean!
After the game we met up again and went for dinner with a Chicago police detective friend of Matt's dad. He was such an interesting guy and I was totally shocked by the stories that he told us. I felt like I was in a movie, he seemed to know everyone and people kept coming up to him and shaking his hand. We were treated like celebrities in the restaurant and what should have been a huge bill for the amount of food we all ate was tiny.
Monday brunch was at Matt's favourite breakfast place - Sweet Maple. Chicago really knows how to do a good breakfast! I had some delicious homefries with ham and red pepper while Chris had lemon and raspberry pancakes which he said were one of the best breakfasts that he had ever had.
After breakfast we spent a few hours walking around the city. The Ryder Cup was due to be held in Chicago the following weekend so the 'Magnificant Mile' Michigan Avenue was lined with huge golf balls all decorated differently. We all chose our favourite for a photo.
The last time that we were in Chicago we didn't manage to try any Chicago deep dish pizza so that was a definite 'must do' this time. Matt took us to his favourite pizza restaurant Pizzeria Due. It was absolutely delicious! I have never tasted pizza like it, the crust was so different but so good.
After pizza we drove to the White Sox stadium to meet up with the detective friend that we had met yesterday. He took us to District 9 Police Station to meet the Commander who gave us a personal tour of the station and presented us all with police caps! It was so interesting, the night shift were just starting to arrive for another night fighting gang crime. I was fascinated by it all, I've obviously lived such a sheltered life so far and how no idea that police officers in cities like Chicago were going out and being shot at every night.
After our tour we were driven back to the White Sox stadium and whisked inside by our new detective friend who also works security at the stadium. He took us into the trophy room where we saw their 2005 world series trophy. We were then taken into the Scouts Club which is the 'all you can eat and drink' area and told just to help ourselves! We were all still full from our afternoon pizza but managed to find room for a little bit of food and as many drinks that we could manage. I downed about 3 glasses of wine in about 30 mins so the next hour was a little bit of a blur but it basically felt like we were led 'behind the scenes' through all sorts of doors and corridors to different areas of the stadium. We seemed to stop every few minutes so that we could be introduced to different people, I have no idea who they were but they all seemed excited to meet us, I felt like royalty! We were introduced to a woman who was instructed to find us some good seats and help us with anything that we wanted. What a perfect way to end our sports weekend in Chicago!
On Tuesday morning it was time for Matt and Melissa to fly back to DC so we dropped them off at the airport then drove to Oak Park, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio.
The tour was interesting and the building was beautiful. I'd read a book all about Frank's life so it was really interesting for me to actually see inside one of the buildings that I had read about.
After the tour it was time to get on the road and on to our next destination - Wisconsin.
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