Chicago-Memorial Day Weekend 2009

Here is the detailed chronicle of my trip to Chicago! Please be advised, the following pictures are in no particular fashion or order!!! When you have this many pictures it's a bit of a hassle to try and re-order everything into timeline detail, so... I'm kind of starting at the end...

This is the bean in Millenium Park. It was our last day there and the only ladies left in Chicago were Amanda, Tiffany and I so we did more sight-seeing! And shopping!

Trick photography??? :)

Amanda, myself and Tiffany in front of the bean. I love the way you can see the Chicago Skyline in the bean behind us!!!

This is from inside the bean!!! You can walk up underneath it and arches up really high into this optical illusion type reflection. Who can spot me???

This is a fountain that changes the digital images of faces and then it spits water out at passers by!!!

Chicago style hotdog for lunch at Portillo's! If you order a hotdog with ketchup on it in Chicago, they will laugh at you!!! lol

This is the Adler Planetarium. Lianna and I saw a show here. We kind of did a whirlwind tour with a CityPass. It got you into most places and we wanted to see as much as we could but only had one day and it was only good until 5:30pm. So we rushed around and saw as much as we could! :)

Outside of the Shedd Aquarium... Stop number three or four on our whirlwind tour...

Beluga Whales at the aquarium.

This is Amanda, Lianna and I in front of the city line. It was really windy!!!

We had stopped to get off of the trolly tour to take some pictures and don't you know, just as we stepped off, we rand into the rest of the ladies who were doing a Segway tour of Chicago!!!

This is a picture of the city taken from the observation deck of the Sears Tower... Another stop on our whirlwind tour!

Flags inside the first floor of the Sears Tower. Pretty awesome looking!

We went to an off-broadway show called "Tony and Tina's Wedding." It was pretty funny. Basically it's as if you were invited to be a guest at the craziest most ridiculous wedding you can imagine and then you attend the reception for dinner and traditional wedding dances like the Electric Slide and such. But they also continue the show. It's entirely interactive and you mingle with the wedding party while they stay in character. Very funny! One of the groomsmen asked me to dance with him for the slow dance... The most incredibly awkward thing ever!!! I didn't know him from a hole in the wall and had to slow dance with him for the whole song and talk the whole time.... Wierd!!!

This is Tony, the groom.

This is Tina, the bride. On the right is her brother who was a groomsman but got more comfortable for the reception and took off his jacket and suit shirt. And the girl to the left is one of her bridesmaids who was "pregnant" and just so happened to be the girlfriend/fiance of the groomsman who asked me to dance with him.

Lianna, Tiffany and I went on an Architectural riverboat cruise along the Chicago River. It was pretty amazing. That's where all the pictures of buildings and such are from below.

This is the Navy Pier taken from the boat.

This is a random building, can't remember which one it was, but if you look closely underneath the building, you can see the subway train. Appearantly part of the City of Chicago was built overtop of the railroad system. All of the property is owned by the rail company so any buildings built on top had to purchase "AIR SPACE" to build onto. As a result any one who buys a condo in one of the buildings is also buying "AIR SPACE" to live in... Wierd, right?

This building followed the natural curve that the river made here so the facade is slightly rounded. I loved the reflection of all the buildings across the river that you could see in the face of the building. Very reflective!

Skyline including Sears Tower, which was recently bought by an overseas Brittish company and they will be renaming it because they sold the Sears Tower with the naming rights!!! What were they thinking?!?!?!

More cool architecture...

These two buildings were amazingly cool! The condo's here are called Marina Towers, I think, and they're located right on the Chicago River, but most locals refer to them as the Corn Cobs... The lower portions of the buildings are parking spaces, you can see the cars if you look closely, and all of the condo's are "petal" shaped following the design of the building. They were also supposedly the inspiration for the living quarters of a well known futuristic cartoon family... ANY GUESSES?????

I think this was our first night there. Lianna, Valerie, Tiffany and I went to a dueling piano bar called "Howl At The Moon" where they had two pianos and singers that would take requests and go back and forth playing the requested songs, trying to get everyone to sing along and participate with them.

This is a huge sculpture of the "American Gothic" painting that was along the "Magnificent Mile," which is the equivalent of 5th Avenue in NYC. You want any kind of high end shopping store, look for the Magnificent Mile!

The archetecture here was absolutely amazing! The tall building in the back is the Trump Tower...go figure!

This picture was taken in front of the Water Tower Building. From left to right is Valerie, Lianna and Emilee. These were only three of the thirteen ladies who came for the weekend!!!

And this tall beauty is the second tallest building in Chicago, the Hancock Tower... Appearantly Jerry Springer lives here... booooooo!


Well folks, this is it for now! I managed to take 371 pictures while I was in Chicago! This is just a taste of the pictures that I have but it definitely shows everything that we did for the most part! Hope you enjoy!!!