Chicago, the Windy (& Snowing) City.

There has been quite a delay since our last blog post, and the sole reason for this is DisneyWorld. It consumes your life, completely. Forget about washing your hair, calling your mum or even doing something relaxing, that is not an option. Your new schedule looks like this: Wake up at 7:00am, get to the Magic Kingdom by 8am (just in time for opening), do various activities in the magic Kingdom which include rides, shopping and general gawping at how cool the actual kingdom looks. Then get on the bus back to your DisneyWorld Resort, Sleep. Then follow the same routine the next day for your next park of choice, ours was Epcot. People say its like its own magical world, and funnily enough, it actually is. All you see is Disney, you drink, eat and play Disney. Then you go home and sleep in Disney (resorts). Nothing else exists. This is also helped by the fact that the whole DisneyWorld area is literally the size of Adelaide, and that's no joke. The drive from our Resort to the Magic Kingdom was literally 32 minutes (and everything in between is either Disney Resorts or Disney Parks), and there is even a downtown Disney, where, like you guessed it, you can do all sorts of Disney activities including eating, shopping and more gawping at cool restaurants and attractions. The place is just obsessively big, and adds to the full immersive experience. So basically, for no reason other than leaving, you will never leave the Disney World.

So now you can better understand why we haven't posted a blog in a couple of days, you just don't have time for that kind of unimportant stuff. 

So back onto Chicago. Chicago is a big city. Lots of shopping and awe-inspiring architecture, but doesn't have the big city feel of New York, it feels just right. Its comfortable, safe and somewhat relaxing. There wasn't a whole lot to do in Chicago, which was quite nice as we were looking for a relax, but basically this is what we did during our 5 nights in Chicago, Enjoy!

Lauren wasn't feeling too good the day we got in so she rested in our luxurious Queen bed in the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. It was a very refreshing change from hostels and apartments!

This was our first and only Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. We weren't too impressed with this one, despite it being recommended by Adam Richman, the dude from Man vs Food, I'll let Lauren describe it for you, as she was particularly disappointed.
I (Lauren) will try and be brief, but basically the pizza "dough" was like short crust pastry which we weren't expecting, I added bacon to my pizza for $2.70 and all I got was a couple of bacon crumbs, the pizza didn't really have much flavour despite being covered in cheese and sauce. To top it off the waiter took my sprite and half filled it with another drink (yuck), he then delivered us the wrong pizzas, then he came back with the right pizza but managed to drop mine everywhere. Finally the two pizzas cost $41! Total rip off and needless to say I ranted to Kristian about how aggressively average they were for hours.

I have only ever seen a line form outside of an Apple Store, but at this Premium outlet center there were lines forming left right and center. This particular line pictured was for Ralph Lauren, which I couldn't believe, but once I entered and saw the prices, I soon understood! Like we're talking 1/3 of the price that you'd find in Australia, it was criminal. 

Another line for the exclusive 'Coach', it was a one person in, one person out basis. Funnily enough for the entire 5 hours we were there, a line was always protruding out the door.

Australia, meet Portillo's hot dogs. It was a restaurant, but in an unconventional fashion. It was counter service (to the left of the photo), in which you order at one counter and picked up at another (meaning no tips! Yesss) and proceeded to a table of your choice in a memorabilia filled restaurant. Their was unique Chicago memorabilia all over the walls and roof, basically everywhere you looked, it was pretty cool. 

Ohh and did I mention it was cheap? All this for under $20, and there was fries in there somewhere. 

One of the cooler looking McDonalds you'll ever see, still didn't wow us enough to eat in their though, urgh. 

One of the old preserved parliamentary buildings in the heart of modern skyscrapers. 

One of the best jumbo cookies I've had from Hershey World. I hate Hershey chocolate (Lauren loves it), I find it takes like a mixture of dust and puke, but their iced chocolate and milkshakes were nice. 

That same parliamentary building throughout the daytime with an old horse and carriage in front. 

Just a cool looking 9 story shopping center. Ohh and did I mention Chicago is huge for shopping?! It's actually crazy how many shops (more of the expensive variety) there are. Some even double up in the same street. You could literally walk for 50 minutes and still be hitting posh shops. 

This was our 'lash out' hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton, looked kind of shabby from the outside (probably why they didn't just called it straight up the Hilton) abut was very modern inside. 

The Bean! This is the main attraction in Chicago, the Chicagoans love it. It was pretty cool though, it gave you a really cool 180 degree view of the city behind you, and made you look fat at the same time. 

Back to Portillo's hot dogs. It was a miserable day, and the fact it was -1 degrees maximum, the best thing to do was go get inside and eat and drink the day away. Neither of us were complaining. 

That's what happens when you stay indoors and eat and drink for a prolonged period. 

Around 3pm that day, it started raining. Lucky for us, the maximum temperature for that day was -1 with a minimum of -4, so naturally that rain quickly turned into snow!

People thought we were crazy standing out in the snow, but because we'd never seen it properly snow, it was such an amazing experience. So we just stood outside, in the freezing cold, catching snow and acting like children. 

It you look closely you can see little snow flakes in Lauren hair. 

This is the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, arguably Chicago's biggest attraction (in fierce competition with the Bean of course!). It you click on the image you can see the snow flakes coming down. 

Enjoying the snow shower. 

SNOW SNOW SNOW!

At this point the snow was getting heavier and more frequent, but it didn't matter, it was just that much fun.

The light snow quickly turned into a small blizzard, covering Chicago briefly. It was still a tonne of fun to stand in despite almost being blown away. 

We tried to capture the snow, but I don't know how successful we were. 

More snow, are you sick of it yet? Hang in there, not too much more to go. 

Snow fall in the main streets of Chicago, damn it was cold though!

Catching snow flakes.

The snow was kind of like an attraction in itself, to the point we were taking selfies in front of it.

In every big city, you feel a little bit of an obligation to hitch a ride to the top of the tallest building and get a 360 degree aerial view of the city. However we could not bring ourselves to pay the $20 each to go up the John Hancock Tower, so we went up to the restaurant, pretended we were getting drinks (and damn this place was post and expensive, your talking over $10 for a single low quality beer), then bailed to the bathroom one at a time in order to catch the lift down. Nothing like a free view of Chicago!

This was the Restaurant at the top of the Tower, 95 floors up. It had some amazing views, and we obviously got right up close, but these were the only photos I took. 

A shot of Navy Pier. 

On our last night I had an urge to eat on a train. Strange I know, but when you saw a particular item on the menu, you should completely understand. 

It was called the three little piggies, and as the name suggests, it had three varieties of pig, plus 2 eggs. Smoked apple wood bacon, with a pork sirloin, handfuls of ham and an onion ring. Thankfully I didn't eat all of the sucker, otherwise I'd be on my way to the emergency room quick fast. 

The exterior of the train, or The Silver Palm as its called. 

Some night shots of the bean. 

A panoramic view of a portion of the Chicago skyline. 

The bean was that big it required a panorama shot. 

The bean made me feel small. Wait, I am small. 

Another good shot of the bean. 

A frozen silhouette of a leaf, that's how damn cold it was.

In the Chicago Loop (downtown) at night. 

This was the view from our apartment. The station below to the right is one of the main stations in the loop to demonstrate how centrally located this place was, it was amazing. 

Christmas decorations, only 6 weeks early! Nevertheless it was a nice addition to most shop fronts. 

So that wraps up Chicago, and while it was a really nice place, we were just happy to be in a place with an average temperature above -2. That's where Orlando and DisneyWorld come in! A post of our exhausting activities will come in the next couple of days, but first we will enjoy a couple of days rest in warm beautiful Miami.

So until then, hope everyone is well!
Kristian & Lauren.