June 17, 2016

Travel Diary: The Sights & Sounds of the Windy City, Chicago - Part. 1

Welcome to the Windy City, Chicago!

So a a couple months ago, I had the great opportunity to visit to beautiful city of Chicago. I brought along my friend and fellow blogger Nancy with me to partake in this Chicago adventure. I had been once before when I was very young, so of course I didn't remember anything. Therefore, I was very excited to visit the city as an adult, as I would be able to properly explore and experience what Chicago had to offer....


Now, this was a very short trip, I mean extremely short. What was supposed to be a 3 day long weekend trip turned into just a 2 day short trip. I will get into what occurred in the next installment of this travel diary lol. So, with just 2 days explore, we decided to spend the one full day we had sightseeing. There are many sites to see in downtown Chicago so we had to narrow down our choices to those in closes proximity to each other. Once we settled on our choices, off we went to embark on our exciting day of sightseeing.



Sky Deck in the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower):


Our first stop was to visit the Sky Deck in Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower. Now this right here was the space I wanted to visit the most out of all the site, therefore it was a must that we go there. When I was in elementary school, we had a school project to build replicas of famous skyscrapers around them world. So, you can guess which skyscraper I got right...the Sears Tower! I spent so much time designing and building this thing; the measurements and dimensions of the model had to be to scale in relation to the original tower, which was very tedious to have to calculate. Being the perfectionist that I am, I worked tirelessly to make it perfect. In the end, I was so happy and impressed with the model I built, I told myself that one day I would visit the actual Sears Tower. That day had finally come and I was beyond excited!

Upon arrival, we were met by a huge line that seemed like more than an hour wait. Fortunately for us, we had arranged to have a media tour, so let's just say we did not have much of a wait to go up the tower lol.

Tip: If you plan to visit the Sky Deck, arrive early and get tickets beforehand


City Views from the Sky Deck
After we went up the 110 floors, we enjoyed the breathtaking Chicago city views. Lucky for us, the weather was good and the sky's were clear.



I'm all the way up!
Double Selfie in the Sky Deck!
Cool experience: While we waited in line to take a pic in the all glass observation deck area of the Sky Deck, a man proposed to his girlfriend! Awww, isn't that so romantic!


Calder's Flamingo:

After finishing up at the Sky Deck, we decided to walk over to Millennium Park to check out a few sites located there. On our way, we came across another cool sighting, Calder's Flamingo. This is a huge red steel abstract structure located in the Federal Plaza. There was some sort of community event happening there, however it did not seem like one that was open to the general public, therefore after a quick snap, we continues on our way.


On my way to Millenium Park:





Buckingham Fountain:

Buckingham Fountain, one of the largest fountains in the world

Millennium Park:


Jay Pritzker Pavilion



Millennium Monument

Cloud Gate (a.k.a. The Bean):


Next we visited infamous Chicago Cloud Gate a.k.a 'the Bean' which was also located within Millennium Park. Cloud Gate is a huge mirrored sculpture is the shape of a bean. I had see this piece in a few movies I've watched, therefore it was a must-see during my trip to Chicago. As it is one of the major tourist attractions in the city, there were many people surrounding the sculpture when we arrived. I thought it looked pretty cool, Nancy on the other hand thought it looked smaller than she had imagined. Nevertheless, we both enjoyed checking it out, and of course could not leave without taking some mirror selfies!



Twinsies! :)
I see you ;)

Random Views:

Here are a few additional shots of random views we saw along the way as we walked between sites.

Beautiful Skyline & Architecture





Cool parking garage tower. Can you imagine parking all the way at the top!
Two things I has really wanted to do and see was the Michael Jordon statue and so a Segway tour. However the weather was a bit to chilly for the Segway tour which I believe would be more enjoyable in warmer weather, and the Michael Jordon statue was a bit far from where we were.

Thus, that ended our fun day of sightseeing in downtown Chicago. I wanted to continue the exploration to South Side Chicago, but Miss Nancy was not about that life lol! Oh well, maybe next time. Actually, eventually did end up in the South side to check out a restaurant and attend an event, but we were in what I guess you would call the 'nicer' part...

Stay tuned for the next installment of my Chicago Travel Diary to see more!

~G~

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