30th Birthday: Chicago!

When you turn 30, you don't just have cake and ice cream with some friends. Oh no. Originally, Jaime and I had planned to go to Hawaii over Thanksgiving, which would have spanned both of our 30th birthdays, but it just worked out better logistically to go in October. I can't just ignore my birthday, though, so Jaime graciously flew out and met me in Chicago for the weekend. 

The trip was supposed to start Thursday evening- the day before my birthday - but I ended up having to stay in Indy that night to wait on the mail. You see, one of my favorite new artists, James Bay, came to Chicago on my birthday. I'm pretty sure he actually came to Chicago FOR my birthday. Jaime was going to buy the tickets online but they sold out. Fortunately, I found a seller on Craig's List selling their tickets for cheaper than we would have purchased them from the original site. It was only a week out, but the seller graciously agreed to expedite them to me so they'd get here by Wednesday. Wednesday came and went. I checked the tracking online and they were in Indianapolis, though, so I was sure they'd be here by Thursday. I came home Thursday after work and nothing. I called the post office and for some reason they had been sent to a different post office originally, then redirected to another wrong post office, before they would finally land at mine Thursday night. I was so upset. Jaime was flying into Chicago Thursday night. We had a room booked Thursday. There was no possible way I would be able to get the tickets until Friday morning. So after some discussion and a lot of frustration, I decided to stay in Indy, go to the post office first thing Friday, and head up to still meet her before lunch time. I downloaded Adele's new album (also came out FOR my birthday, thank you very much) and jammed on my drive up. It was a sunny morning and everything turned out ok.

I made it up in time for birthday brunch at The Bongo Room which was TO DIE FOR. Seriously, if you are ever in Chicago, you must visit this place. It was amazing. We had two orders of pancakes - salted caramel pretzel and...something banana. I want to say peanut butter banana. And then an egg and veggie croissant with roasted potatoes. Yum.O. Just thinking about this makes me want to drive to Chicago right now.

After brunch, we walked around the downtown parks a bit. It got cloudier and colder as the day went on, but still manageable for November in Chicago.

We happened upon this park downtown called Maggie Daley Park which had a huge playground with some very cool slides and swings. It was hands-down the neatest playground I've ever seen. We played around for a bit. Fortunately, it wasn't overrun by kids since it was a school day...and cold.

The slide was a bit too powerful for Jaime. She needs to work on her landings.

From there we headed to Millennium Park and played around with the famous Bean, or Cloudscape as it is rightfully called. It's really just a giant bean-shaped mirror, but for some reason it is so fun.

There's an ice skating rink in Millennium Park and while we were there, we witnessed a marriage proposal. It was so sweet to watch. Everyone on the rink and the surrounding area just stopped and watched. I'm pretty sure I don't want to have hundreds of people involved in my very special, intimate moment, but I'm glad they didn't mind us being a part of theirs!

We were freezing and needed some cell phone juice, so we headed across the street to the Chicago Cultural Center. We admired the ornate walls and ceilings and charged our phones a bit. It is such as stunning building!

From there, we walked around downtown for a while, taking in the scenery and stopping every once in a while.

I'd had several recommendations for food - donuts especially. Apparently donuts are big in Chicago. We stopped at two - Firecrackers and Glazed and Infused - but Glazed and Infused wins because 1. The pumpkin donut was bomb. and 2. It was free because it was my birthday!

 Afterwards, we stopped at Xoco, a Mexican place, and got some very thick Mexican hot chocolate and talked for a while. It's so hard to want to be outside when it's so cold.

For dinner that night, we went to Giordano's for some famous Chicago deep dish pizza. It was so good! We tried two different kinds in tiny little pans and weren't even able to finish them. That stuff is no joke!

The concert was at The Riviera theater. The tickets were general admission, so I was so worried we'd be standing the whole time. At thirty years-old, I think I deserve a chair, you know what I'm saying? Fortunately the balcony had chairs and we got there early enough to snag a great seat. It was a fabulous show and I loved the old theater!

We came out to a fresh blanket of snow. Just what I wanted for my birthday! Ugh. Fortunately we didn't have to walk around in it that night or the next day. Oh wait. :) It was very beautiful at night, and the train station wasn't too crowded so we were able to stand right next to the heater while we waited for the train.

We loved The Bongo Room so much that we went back for breakfast the next morning. We ordered the egg and veggie croissant again and got the lemon berry french toast along with it. OH.MY.GOSH. That french toast was the best thing I've ever eaten. That may be an exaggeration, but there is a strong chance it is not. It was so delicious.

It was snowy and cold, so we planned to spend the day inside, which was a great idea except for the part about taking public transportation. Turns out you have to be outside a lot when you're walking to and from and waiting at train or bus stops.

My family visited Chicago once when I was a kid and I remember going to the Museum of Science and Industry and really liking it, so we headed back there. There are definitely some cool exhibits there, but it wasn't as interactive as I remember it being. Both of us were also not feeling too great either, so we weren't as excited about walking around looking at everything.

They had a beautiful Christmas tree display showcasing trees from all over the world with this huge one in the center.

This wave machine was probably one of our favorite things at the museum. You could adjust the seismic activity to show what the resulting tidal wave would look like. We watched this thing for a long time.

My favorite part was the mirror maze. It was pretty easy to tell where you were going because the mirrors had fingerprint smudges all over them, but it was still pretty trippy. We had a fun time trying to get good pictures.

This sensor showed you how close your body proportions were to the golden ratio, except I'm pretty sure it told every person the same thing, so I'm not sure how accurate it was.

Model train exhibit. There were also a few planes hanging from the balcony which I really enjoyed looking at and learning about. There was a full-size commercial jetliner, which was accompanied by a video explaining how they got it into the building. I thought it was really interesting. Jaime fell asleep. She wasn't feeling well, ok? :)

For dinner we visited a place called Eataly which is a giant Italian market selling all types of Italian food and anything you may ever need to create your own Italian food. We had a couple of pasta dishes which were good, but I didn't think they were worth what we paid for them. With so many other restaurant options, I was disappointed that we'd chosen this place. We did buy some Italian bread for the next day, though, which was delicious.

That night we went to see Mockingjay: Part 2 and of course ate tons of popcorn. We stayed there that night then Jaime flew home the next morning and I drove home to make it back in time for church. It was a whirlwind couple of days but we had a great time. Bring on year 31!