Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sweet Home Chicago

ALRIGHT FOLKS.  It's Marianna Annadanna here with the official Cheesy Chicago report.  

First of all, after Miss Sarcasm picked me up at the airport, we ventured to a delish lunch at a make-your-own-stir-fry place.  I've never eaten so many edamame beans in my life.  Although, come to think of it, maybe I have.  It's hard to tell. 

Second, they don't have damn DSW in Canada, so I was pretty much having a heart attack.  And Miss Sarcasm even bought BOOTSAnd she's pretty sure she was served by a Kardashian

The Palmer House Hotel was the oldest, coolest, most elegant/haunted hotel I've ever stayed in. 

It takes up an entire city block right in The Loop and has so many huge secret ballrooms that I'm fairly certain it used to be a fancy prison for giants. 

Wait, what?

Once LACE arrived, we took off to meet Coffee Lovin Mom for dinner.  SO EXCITING

And I did not by any means drop the lens out of my glasses and make Miss Sarcasm and LACE (and the kind housekeeper) crawl all over the hotel floor for 10 minutes until we found it.  I would never do that.  That'd just be RUDE

And on the way out I most certainly did not try to eat off some guy's plate while we were wading through hoards of hotel conference goers.  That'd be WEIRD. 

Did I mention that dinner was not just dinner?  Did I mention it was DEEP DISH PIZZA?  Also known as HEAVEN.   

And a few bottles of wine at Pizzeria Due with complementary salad and cheesecake was certainly the highlight of the day (despite all the shoe shopping - which, in my book, is difficult to top). 

And then MISS SARCASM TWEETED A REAL HOUSE WIFE OF NEW YORK and they became BFFs.  True story. 

The next exciting adventure included singing Meatloaf at the rockin piano bar.  I was also fairly excited by If I Had A Million Dollars (pronounced Doll-ers, not Dal-ers) by the (super duper Canadian) Barenaked Ladies

Once CoffeeLovinAmy took us back to the hotel AND ABANDONED US FOR HER DAMN CHILDREN AND HUSBAND, we settled in and passed out went to sleep. 

Once morning came, the time for exploring arose. 

Accroding to LACE's pedomiter contraption, we walked, like, at least 16000 steps on Saturday.  Now, to be fair, some of those were double steps (given all the drunken stumbling), but still.  That's a lot a steps, YO

We explored Navy Pier. 

We ate a lot of food.  LACE had her first ever Churro.  We bought a shit-ton of accessories and jewelery.  INCLUDING A CUTE BROWN PURSE WITH HOT PINK ON THE INSIDE.  HOT PINK, people.  PINK.  On the INSIDE

We went on an architecture boat tour.  (You can follow Jeff our tour guide on the twitter if you want, but watch out - he doesn't seem to follow anyone.  Maybe if we all taunt him.  Let's do that.)

We also did some intense souvenier shopping.  I wanted to buy these sexy hats, but I'm not the kind of person who goes over the top.  It's just not my style.  I'm a shy, rational person. 

So is Miss Sarcasm.  Rational. 

Then we had a fancy dinner at Millenium Park with plenty of wine...

...AND cheese

Now.  This is when it got scary.  Literally.  THAT HOTEL IS HAUNTED, YOU GUYS. 

Ok, maybe not (although LACE was pretty sure it was, so what do I know), but it was pretty damn spooky.  We know because we wandered through all the blocked off doors and hallways for at least an hour.  And I think Miss Sarcasm peed in a urinal.  Maybe.  Don't worry though.  There were no orbs in our pictures. 

Sunday morning was an early start and a yummy breakfast before poor LACE had to hit the airport.  She did get to ride the EL though, so there's that. 

Miss Sarcasm and I then took a very packed subway to the beach, bought some chocolate, found a heroic dog, and walked all the way back before parting ways (for which there may or may not have been wet eyeballs). 

Heroic Dog

I was then left alone to bid farewell to Chi-town all on my own. 

So I did what any normal person does when alone in a big city:  I bought more shoes and played in several water fountains