Chicago, IL

Our Chicago trip began on the July 7th night after Guru Purnima celebration. We stayed in Congress Plaza Hotel in downtown. Buckingham fountain was 5 minute walk from the hotel. Lights and the water jet on the hour was awesome.

Next day, I went early to Midway airport using MTA to pick up rental car. I rented PT Cruiser, a perfect car for driving in downtown, easy to maneuver, park etc. In Chicago, you don't need a rental car as most of the must to visit places are in walking distance. Additionally, public transportation is good. By the time I reached hotel (8:30am), Vidhya completed the checkout and was ready with Kirti. Since we were early we decided to visit Buckingham Fountain and Grant Park to show it to Kirti, as she was asleep the previous day. We parked the car using pay parking on the street near the fountain itself. Kirti fell down and scratched both her legs on the rough surface. Scratches were quite large. So, we wrapped up pretty quick and went back to hotel to clean her wound and give first aid. Next, we went to Sears or Willis Tower (new name). We didn't visit the skydeck as we were not interested and we also needed to catch up the boat tour on time.

From there we went to Wendella boats, but we reached late (Thanks to GPS). We had to catch up the next boat tour "Combined Lake and River Tour," which was longer than the regular river tour. Boat tour was relaxing and worth it.

Given this, we were delayed to meet Shankar Prasanna, my undergrad school senior. We had delicious home made lunch (Thanks to Sandhya & her mom). Then Shankar and we went to Millenium Park by walk. There we visited: Crown fountain*, Boeing Gallery, Great Lawn, Cloud Gate* and Park Monument*. Next, we went to Lou Malnati's Pizza in the downtown. We had mouthwatering Chicago style deep dish pizza. It took 30 mins to have our pizzas after we ordered. We were getting close departure time. After our dinner we headed back to Shankar's place, picked our car, filled the gas and rushed to airport (MDW). Airport was pretty much empty, so we breezed through the check-in and security check and boarded the flight to Baltimore (BWI). One thing I don't like about security check is to empty the water. We had to waste few gallons of water throughout this trip. It was nice to catch up with Shankar after a long time. Thanks to Shankar and family for lunch, dinner and accompanying us in the afternoon.

Click on the hypertexts for trip planner and album.

[* Not to be missed]

Tips:

• When getting ticket for MTA, use exact change. I wanted one way ticket, but I had only $5 on hand. When I inserted the money the vending machine gave a ticket worth 5 dollars. I gave away the ticket for free to one guy who was trying to get a ticket in the airport.
• If possible, use pay parking on the streets. They are inexpensive, closer to the attractions, easy and convenient when compared to public parking lots/locations. I would recommend trying pay parking first.