Chicago

Day trip 

November 18, 2021

One of my 50 before 50 Bucket list items was to fly somewhere for dinner (deep dish pizza). So, Mike’s 49^th Birthday was a great excuse to knock something off my list. It also helped that we had Southwest Rapid Rewards points so our flight was free. I booked us on the first flight out of New Orleans, which left at 5:30 AM. It was a close call with it being that early of a flight and our GPS accidently took us to the old MSY airport. Luckily, we didn’t have any luggage to check and made it through security quickly and got to the gate just as the flight was boarding. We arrived at Midway Chicago airport at 7:50 AM and quickly found the orange line station to take the “L” into the city. After my experience in NYC subways, I was a bit scared, but this was very simple system to get to the city. We bought tickets for a couple bucks and hopped on the train.

When we left New Orleans, it was 75 degrees and Chicago was 35 degrees! A nice change… We got off the L downtown and after some walking around for a bit grabbed a quick coffee and bite to eat at Goddess and the Baker. We then headed to the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) Skydeck to see the views of Chicago from the 103^rd floor “Ledge.” This ledge lets you suspend 1,353 feet in the air in glass balconies that is composed of three layers of half-inch thick glass, safely able to hold 10,000 pounds. We took a quick elevator ride up to the 103^rd floor and stopped for some photo ops. Luckily, we were there on a Thursday morning, so there was not a wait and we could spend as much time as we wanted checking out the view.

Our next stop for the day was the Cloud Gate/Bean in Millennium Park. We spent some time walking around the park and enjoying the city reflections of The Bean. The city workers were also in the process of decorating their huge Christmas Tree and skating rink.

We then walked a short way to Giordano’s for the mail reason of this trip… DEEP DISH PIZZA! However, when we got to the location next to the park, we were told they were renovating the restaurant and only offered take out. They did have other nearby locations, so we walked the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave) to the Giordano’s on Rush Street. We were seated and told that it takes about 45 minutes to cook the deep-dish pizzas which gave us time to enjoy a couple Blue Moons and people watch out the large windows. We didn’t get crazy and just stuck to the pepperoni pizza. We ordered a small which could have feed a small army. I was only able to eat one piece and Mike had maybe three. We were not going to let the rest go to waste, so we got a to go box for the leftovers.

We needed to walk off the pizza and beer so we took a stroll down the Chicago River when it started with snow flurries. We don’t see snow often in Louisiana so I enjoyed it. We stumbled upon The Office Experience and after a little googling we decided to visit. When we got there, the workers went thought our bags and padded us down (more security than we had at the airport). When I joked about that, they said they had some recent incident with one of their employees’ significant others. I had more questions but they ushered us to the will call to purchase tickets. We were also told we couldn’t take off our mask, even to take a picture. At the ticket desk they told us it was $50/ticket if you didn’t purchase in advance, but $30 if we purchased them beforehand online. Although I’m a huge Office fan, I was just not feeling the experience and decided against it.

It started to get a bit chilly walking on the Riverwalk so we wanted to find a place to have a drink. And let’s be honest… it was Mike’s birthday and that’s what he really wanted to do. There were lots of restaurants that were closed since COVID or not open till dinner. Then we stumbled upon O’Callaghan’s Irish Pub. By this time, it was 3:00 PM on a Thursday and this place didn’t have many open tables. We grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a couple pints. We chatted with the friendly bartender for a good while, then met another girl that was also at the bar. She was interesting… She’s lived all over, was studying meditation and other religions. I must have asked her hundreds of questions. She also had an instrument she carried with her called the Hand Pan. I had never heard of it, but she played for us and let us (try to) play it too.  The owner chatted with us a bit too about his story and how he ended up in Chicago. We made lots of friends and shared many laughs. Next thing you know it was time for us to head back to the airport for our 8:30 PM flight. We first had to go buy our tickets for the “L” to get back to Midway. We almost boarded the right train, but going in the wrong direction. Luckily a nice lady overheard us and pointed us in the right direction.

Once on the “L” I was excited to remember we still had left-over deep-dish pizza in our bag! It was just as good cold (I’m sure all the beer helped). We made it back through the airport and to the terminal with just a slight mishap. Mike lost his belt. Yes, you read that correctly. Mike went to the bathroom once we go to our terminal and realized his belt was gone. He had many a “birthday beer” at the pub. But crisis averted… we found it in his bag and realized he must have put it in there going through security.

We landed at 11:30 PM after a nice nap on the plane. For a 12-hour day trip we had a blast and would do it all over again! Where to next?