Well, it took us over a month and 3600 miles to finally be in another time zone but here we are. We spent the last week outside of Chicago in Naperville, Illinois. We spent our first night there meeting up with one of Josh's old buddies from high school, Mark, and his wife, Bonnie. We went over to their apartment in downtown Chicago and caught up on life and hang out for a bit with their doggie, Bella. They live about two blocks from Lake Michigan in a cute apartment in a very tall building--with a doorman! Afterwards, we headed over to Millennium Park to take some pictures at one of the famous sculptures, The Cloud Gate, or more affectionately known as The Bean. We parked and walked over to the sculpture garden and took about three pictures before a security guard informed us that the park is closed and nicely told us to 'beat it'. Apparently it closed at 11 pm. It was 2:00 am. Fair enough. But this is The Bean....
We were pretty determined to get a good picture though so we planned on coming back another night. We met up with Juliann, who goes to school at Wheaton College and got her off campus for awhile and she showed us around the city. We decided to go to this little German Christmas market in the middle of the city and we had a lot of fun there. The vendors were people from all different areas of the world selling handmade goods from their respective countries. Aaannnddd food of course. We had bratwurst and sauerkraut and latkes. I can't say the bratwurst was very good. Not my thing but dessert was pretty exciting. Another stand had chocolate covered everything. We got some grapes and marshmallows and Juliann got a baked apple with marzipan in it.
We had fun :)
And then we tried to go back to The Bean. Did we look at the time? Nah. We got there and had 30 seconds in front of the sculpture before we got kicked out this time...
But we still got one sort of good picture with the glasses on :) But our most epic day was most certainly Sunday. Juliann, being the crafty college student she is, found out about this deal where you can usher for a Blue Man Group show and get in for free (just pay for parking). Tickets are normally $70 a person so this is an amazing deal. So we started off our outing at Portillo's, a local hot dog place to have ourselves some authentic Chicago Dogs.
They are delicious. If I could design the perfect toppings on a hot dog, this would be it. Then we made our way to Northern Chicago to go to the show. Oh yeah, we had to stop at Filene's Basement so that Josh and I could get the black pants/white shirt combo necessary for ushering. So we showed up to the theater and everyone is very low-key and thanking us left and right for ushering. I felt like we should be thanking them for letting us see the show for free! All we ha to do was direct people to the general direction of their seats, hand them a program and tell them to enjoy the show. Then we got to see the show in the fifth row from the front! It was an amazing show. It was like a sensory rodeo, appealing to each of the human senses. Very interactive, musical (everything from Ozzy Osbourne to Beethoven), hysterical and thought-provoking. There was a call to recognize how much time is spent in front of and inside of technology. The show was family friendly but full of sarcasm and other jokes to appeal to the older members of the audience. Then all we had to do was clean up after the show! It was such a good deal and so much fun to be a part of!
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| Blue Man!! |
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| It looks like joshjosh got kissed by the Blue Man! He took the paint from right off his head and put it on josh's cheek :) After the amazing show, we went for some more authentic Chicago-ness and got some deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's (apparently the place to go for pizza). It was delicious. |
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| It looked way better in the pan. Then, third times the charm, we went back to The Bean for some pictures. This time we left ourselves three hours in which to get the perfect picture. It only took an hour, which is good because our fingers and toes went numb! But we had a blast being silly and taking fun pictures in Millennium Park... |
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| We took a head lamp with us to play with lights and the exposure time |
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| :) |
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| Getting squished by the Bean! |
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| The Bean with the cityscape in it We said good bye to Juliann and Josh and I headed to the Sears Tower the next day. In 2009, the Sears Tower was renamed because the rights to the name came up for renewal or something like that and whoever bought it (I assume someone named Willis) renamed it to be the Willis Tower. Apparently you can just do that. Anyway, we went up all the way to the 103rd floor! It was the fastest elevator ride ever experience by the two of us. It took only five seconds (I counted with Mississippi's and all!) per ten floors. And the elevator swayed on the way up. But once at the top, you can see for miles!
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