Chicago…

Two posts from me in one week?  Check my blood pressure!  I figure now that I’m aging, trip recounts don’t last but 2 weeks in my noggin.  Gotta get it down while it’s fresh. Otherwise, it’s a lot of:  You know that one thing at that one place with that one person?  I can’t remember what we did there, but I’m sure we went at one point.

I won’t go into my annoying airplane ride there and the fact that Delta Airlines gipped me a new one because every time I think about it I get all riled up and my blood vessels in my forehead cannot deal with that many surprises in one paragraph!  Maybe one day down the line after I’ve finished composing my e-mail of putridity doused in skunk spray to Delta, I’ll go into it… but for now.  NO THANKS!

I met Madre at the Chicago airport.  She had flown in from Florida on her way back from Haiti.  World traveler, yo!

The day after the wedding, we headed Chicago way and parked in a garage downtown that charged $45 for 24 hours or $33 for 5 to 10 hours.  Of course being from small town, UT where the charge for parking is null and void, we about had a conniption fit right there on the street.

Our first outing for the day was to do a Flavors of Chicago walking food tour.  Basically, a gal carrying a large stick with a pizza board on the top of it walked us around downtown chicago in the wind and frigid and we ate things.  WEIGHT LOSS DREAM COME TRUE!  There were 12 in our group… Madre and I from Utah; a group of 5 from California; and my favorites… a group of 5 lady friends on a trip together, all in their 50s and 60s from Boston, MA!  Four of the ladies warned the tour guide about the 5th lady while she was in the bathroom… and boy were they correct!  She had foot-in-mouth disease and rarely thought before she spoke.  I knew we were in for a treat when she turned to us and in a thick Baw-ston accent was like, Who the hell lives in Utah!?!?  They turned out as nice as can be, though, and were all about giving us tips on tourist destinations since they’d been in the city for a few days by then.

Our first food stop was Pizano’s Pizza and Pasta.  Apparently, this is Oprah’s favorite Chicago deep dish pizza of all time!

Those are the hilarious Bawstonian ladies in the background!

The pizza had a lot of flavor… great fresh mozzarella and delectable sauce, but the crust was a bit tough for my taste.  Maybe my pal, Oprah enjoys her crust a little rough around the edges.

Next stop was the Drake Hotel where we checked out their famous tea room.  We didn’t eat anything here because I’m sure it costs 800 bucks per lettuce leaf, but it was Vegas oppulent!  We were also told we had to check out the ladies room here because it made some list of like the top 10 fanciest bathrooms in the world or some such nonsense?  None of us were impressed.  Firstly, there was no guy handing out towlettes and chocolate mints upon exit of the stall… and I don’t want an individual stall with a couch next to the toilet.  That’s just nastified!  Who wants to sit on a couch by a toilet!?  Seriously!

The Boston ladies insisted we needed to check out the ladybug cow on the side of the Talbott Hotel.  No one argues with them, and so we did!

Who knew there was a species of cat-cow-spider-ladybug.

Next?  A sample of a chocolate brownie at

I can’t remember the significance of this place.  It is famous for something or other.  I think I may have been too enthralled by the conversations of the Boston 5 to hear what our tour guide was talking about.  The brownie sample was okay… I don’t think I’d run back to get a whole one, but none of my brain cells ever complain much about chocolate!  Unless it’s white chocolate because… A.)  THAT’S NOT CHOCOLATE!

The tour guide talked a lot about the famous Chicago fire of 1871, which burned up the entire city except for a few buildings that were made of rock… some of which were still standing.

Which one of these things is not like the other!?  They definitely stand out amidst the skyscrapers.  The 2nd building was a church that Abraham Lincoln attended once.  And if you look at the black steeple in the middle and the one on the back right, those are blackened from the soot from the actual 1871 fire.

Next stop was the famous, Pippin’s Tavern, which was so old the floors sloped and I’m pretty sure the floors were the original from the late 1800s.  We had a Chicago style dog here.  What’s the significance of a Chicago style dog?  NO KETCHUP ALLOWED!  I talked them into making mine dogless.

The sloping floors of oldness!

I burnt my mouth on the hot pepper they had on my dogless bun… and then Boston lady #5 called me a whimp.

Next stop was a place called Heaven on Seven serving New Orleans style food like Jambalaya.  They were nice enough to give me a vegetarian soup and some black beans instead.  This was the place of the interestingly-named hot sauces.  A billion bottles lining the walls.  WARNING:  Avert your eyes to this next picture if you aren’t a fan of some foul language.  Fair warning!

ALL of those bottles are hot sauce bottles.  I tried one of the more mild ones called Asbirin, and immediately called in the fire department.  I’m such a whimp.  It was here that the Boston 5 had a lively conversation about how hot sauce was worse coming out than going in.  PASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then we were off to the Billy Goat Tavern made famous because the owner of said tavern had a pet billy goat he brought with him everywhere or something to that effect.  It was also made famous via a skit on Saturday Night Live called the Cheezborger, cheezborger, cheezborger skit.  I haven’t seen the skit, but they’re apparently really strict at this place.  No Coke and No Pepsi and a big ole list of other things they don’t have.

It was also located underground under the streets and some Batman scenes were filmed on this underground street.  So there.  Here we had a sample of a cheeseburger (Whitney had a cheese sandwich).

The last stop was to Fanny Mae’s Chocolates.

Where they handpaint their chocolates and a handpainted chocolate costs some ridiculous amount like $2.50 per ONE chocolate!  Oh, but they were glorious.  That yellow on in the back right is actually one that tastes like a lemon meringue pie filling.

So much for trying to make the rest of my trip brief!  This was only 3 hours of one day!  Good gosh I babble too much!  I’ll have to finish up in some other posts.  Oh my stars and garters, gurney!