But anyway, I thought I'd show you more pictures of our fabulous trip and spice it up with a few stories as well.
First of all, the 90 minute train ride from Milwaukee to downtown Chicago is freaking amazing. $22 one way and avoiding Chicago traffic/parking makes it one of the best ways to get down there and I think we'll be using this transportation service a lot more often. Plus, train tracks are one of the coolest things to photograph. Here we are, arriving in Chicago:
After dropping off our bags at the hotel, we were immediately on the hunt for a Starbucks. On Michigan avenue we passed the Apple store and I half-jokingly told Nate to pose for a picture in front of the logo. He begrudgingly obliged with a scowl on his face, then said to me afterward, "This is so embarrassing. NO more touristy pictures." Which, of course, caused me to roll on the ground laughing. Really? You didn't think I'd forget to take pictures on this trip, did you?
After the Apple store episode, we found ourselves rather lost....or at least, without a Starbucks. I mean, come on. Aren't there about 64,230 in every major city? And especially downtown Chicago...you'd think there would be about 4 on every corner. But apparently we could not find the elusive S.Beezy near our hotel. Which made Nate very annoyed. And that made me want to take pictures of his annoyance. It's like a vicious cycle, really.
Eventually we found one and all was right with the world. Until I took a sip of the black gold and scalded the entire contents of my mouth....tongue, throat, roof of my mouth were all fried. I was quite upset and said, "That wasn't even pleasurable," which made Nate laugh for a good two hours. You know what they say about payback, right?
Walking around with a numb mouth, we discovered the Chicago river. I know it gets a lot greener than this for St. Patrick's day, but it still looked a little aqua to me.
More Millennium Park fun:
Nate was throwing down a gang sign here, obvi.
We found a stranger to take our picture, which of course made me a nervous wreck. Please don't drop my camera, dude. No...you have to actually look through the viewfinder. OMG just hurry up already. You can tell by the tension in my arm that I was holding my breath for it to be over.
Nate is king of Millennium Park, while a little Asian man points in awe.
Then there was the creepiest thing ever: this talking head of sorts, randomly placed in MP, with water shooting out of it. I hated when his mouth moved and didn't take the time to read about WHY there was a giant talking head, or who he was. Just plain odd, right?
But the water made for some fun pictures and lots of kids seemed to enjoy splashing around next to the giant head.
During the State Street parade, I became obsessed with these Police horses. Even their butts were cute.
This one was my buddy who got really annoyed with my camera. Either that or he's a total show boater who wanted me to capture his best side.
One thing I love about big cities is there is always something happening, and street entertainers are found on every corner. I loved these silver men because they danced like robots then stood still like statues. Again, I guess it was borderline creepy but cool at the same time.
Random flowers outside of our hotel that were truly this yellow. LOVE.
You all know about my love affair with narrow depth of field, right? Well, interesting metal fences are always a fave, too.
After eating some awesome pizza we found the cutest little cupcake store with the most adorable to-go boxes.
My 'black and white' cupcake was the most beautiful thing I'd seen all day. Nate ate his right away but I withheld just to take a few pictures, of course.
Then we were off to Navy Pier where my tripod came out to play. Love this entryway.
My new favorite picture from the entire trip, with the colors, the bokeh, and my favorite subject:
The beloved carosel and ferris wheel:
There was a water fountain inside that had random shoots of water spraying in different directions. Made for a cool picture, of course.
Looking at the 50 fireworks shots I took, I think I like the crazy/blurry ones the best, like this one:
Then came Sunday, when we walked by Buckingham fountain on our way to Shedd Aquarium:
Which, of course, we did not enter because of the two hour wait. But we headed to the Lincoln Park zoo instead and found this little guy:
And this one:
And this one:
More eating and walking and drinking followed that night. And then it was Monday, the day we left:( We headed to the Chicago sign first to satisfy my desire for shots like these:
Then took the ride up to the top of John Hancok, for shots like these:
It was after our ride to the top when we almost got into a fight with some crazy lady in the gift shop. You see, we get a magnet from every trip we take and found the perfect Chicago magnet in the gift store. So we stood in line to check out and waited our turn as two little girls went in front of us. It was kind of a hectic place and the line had to curl around the side because of all the merchandise.
When it came time for us to check out some crazy hooker appeared beside us and said, "Must be nice to cut in line," or something obnoxious like that. I thought maybe she was joking and tried to be nice to her, smiled, and said, "Oh, we only have one thing to buy," thinking that she'd just drop it. But no---she grinned a sarcastic, nasty grin and said in a mocking tone, "Oh, so since you only have one thing to buy you get to cut in front of us? That's great." Immediately my biyatch radar went off and I realized this chick was not kidding around. She was obivously a miserable lunatic who saw us standing in line first, but believed she deserved to go ahead of us anyway.
She mumbled something under her breath and had the world's worst attitude and finally I couldn't take it anymore and said, "I have no idea what you are talking about, or why you think you can just create your own line but we were here first and you're just going to have to deal with it." She seriously thought that we were standing 'outside of the line boundaries' as we waited our turn, so she made her own little line off to the side, which obviously makes perfect sense if you are a total moron. I felt like we were arguing with a four year old and yet she was easily 50. And short. And not cute. And we totally could have taken her down if needed:)
As she spouted off more idiotic claims I turned to the one lady behind us both in line and said, "Make sure you are in the right line or things could get very ugly, apparently." Moron-lady didn't like that too much. Nate told her to have a fabulous day as we left and it took every ounce of my willpower not to get really nasty with her. I just don't get why some people are so miserable in this world, making a huge deal about standing in a freaking gift-shop line? Come on. Get over yourself.
Nate lovingly referred to her as my 'best friend' from that point on because she clearly got under my skin and irritated the heck out of me. All for a freaking magnet. I'm glad I didn't have to drop 'bows on her or display my mad Taekwondo skills in front of all Chicago. Then she'd be really sorry she messed with me:) Has anyone else had run-ins with crazies who are generally miserable people? Ugh. Annoying.
So there you have it, a condensed version of the 114 pics I uploaded to Flickr. I could very easily make another 3 posts about our trip but instead, I'll send you off to Flickr if you want more. And now I have to calm myself down about 'my best friend' again, just thinking about her gets me irritated.
