Chica-GO!

So we took a (very spontaneous) trip to Chicago. My friend Ashley suggested it last Monday, we bought some plane tickets a few hours later, and we were there less than one week later.

Even with less than a week's notice, Jay's good friend Chad and his wife Shana let us stay with them for two nights and got tickets to the Cubs' game. They were playing the Pirates. Chad is a Pirates' fan:

It was really cold (maybe 58...so not really Chicago-cold but definitely cold relative to Texas). And Mr. T sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Me and Jay at the game:

We also met up with Jay's friend Aaron and his wife Jen, who just recently moved to Chicago from Houston, to eat Chicago pizza (one of the few things Jay insisted we do while there). They had a really cool apartment in Lincoln Park with an awesome view of the city from their rooftop deck:

The weather was hazy the whole time we were there. We went up in the Hancock building to wait out the rain at the bar on the top floor one day. Cool (hazy) view:

Jay at Union Station on the steps of the baby carriage scene in The Untouchables:

We rode the El (Jay called it the El Train and someone specifically told him that is wrong...I called it the Metro the whole time). No matter what you want to call it, why doesn't someone tell Houston that public transportation is amazing and efficient:

We drove out to the south side (Hyde Park) and saw some Frank Lloyd Wright Houses (and drove by where Obama lived). The Heller House (one of his "transitional" designs):

And from the porch of the University of Chicago's business school, the Robie House (full-blown "prairie" style; I'm listening to a free audio tour on my cell phone - you just call a number that's posted outside the house - I thought that was so smart):
We took an architectural boat tour, which is always fun. Chicago has so many cool and architecturally significant buildings that literally tell its history over the past hundred years. This is Marina City, residences built in the 1960s right off the river and definitely one of the funkier things out there. They definitely look like two giant corn cobs in the skyline:

And here's Jay with that bean thing in Millennium Park:

And here's me and Ash (who we stayed with the second two nights) in front of the skyline from across the lake:

So all-in-all, it was a really fun trip to see great friends and great sights. And although it makes me feel like Houston is really NOT interesting, it also makes me appreciate our cost of living!