Chicago-En Route/First Night

5:00, our planned wakeup time comes far too early when you aren't sleeping well. We managed to rouse ourselves without too much difficulty, showered and raided my parent's pantry for snacks for the airport and the plane. My Dad was able to take us to the airport and thus save us an exorbitant fee for parking the car. We made it down in no time at all and breezed through security, though the TSA agent at the baggage inspection was somewhat confused by my abundance of baseballs, but it was settled easily and we continued on to our gate to prepare to fly the friendly skies. I got online—free no less!--and played around for a little bit and in no time, we were lining up to board the plane. Lauren and I were able to score seats in the dual person exit row, so we had a little room to stretch out, providing that in the event of a crash, we help the other passengers. Even if we didn't, who was going to blame us? Nobody, that's who. Fortunately, our services were not required on this particular flight,; and a darn good thing, too. I was in a deep slumber for the majority of the flight, waking up for snack and drink services, and then really, not again until we were beginning our descent into Midway Airport.
Midway is the little brother to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and is so much easier (and cheaper) to fly into. We donned our cold weather gear and proceeded to the Elevated Train on the Orange Line which would drop us off less than a block from the condo that we would be staying for the first part of our vacation. While on the El, one of my gloves inexplicably disappeared so my hands were exposed, as well as the vast majority of my head and let's just say that when trying to figure directions, it is much easier when one is not frozen to the sidewalk. Eventually, we called our host, who gave us step by step directions to find the condo. We all finally found each other and happily made our way into the gloriously warm, heated building.
Our condo was located on the 46th floor and provided wonderful views of the lake, museum campus and downtown, which included a fleeting glimpse of Sears Tower and the construction of Donald Trump's new building. The condo itself was gorgeous. 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a dining room, kitchen and living room was the basic design. Of course this doesn't include the foyer, washing machines and closet that was at least as big as our bedroom back home, if not bigger. Living in the lap of luxury is something that I can definitely get used to.
The host gave us a quick tour, showed us how to use our various toys (TV, DVD player, stereo etc) and left us to our own devices, with the advice that I maybe should pick up some cold weather accessories sooner rather than later, since it had been forecast to be -20 at one point in our visit.
As much as I like the “cold” weather, I heeded this advice, since Midwestern cold is significantly different from a Southern California cold.
In fact, the building was connected via underground sidewalk to the lower entrance to Macy's Department Store (formerly retail giant, Marshall Field) and as out first real act in Chicago, we went and I bought new gloves and a scarf. Nothing fancy, but it was still obscenely expensive. Both garments would earn their cost in my eyes. Possibly even that night. After eating, we tried finding one of the great Chicago deep dish pizza joints, Giordano's. I thought we would have the navigation for this trip easy, since I have an iPhone and had been testing the map function at home, but trying to actually find a destination with Google maps, frozen fingers and a gnawing pain in your stomach is different than playing around sitting in your bedroom.
After several detours, wrong turns, backtracking and a bit of a bad attitude from yours truly, we stumbled bass-ackward into the restaurant, which, indicating a theme for the majority of the week, was fairly desolate. We ordered garlic bread and a deep dish cheese and Canadian bacon pizza. It took 30 minutes or so to actually bake and it was well worth it..There is nothing like true Chicago deep dish pizza, where the cheese of the pizza weighs five pounds. So delicious.
After eating and lingering for as long as we could justify, we grudgingly trudged back onto the snowy cold streets and our way back home. This time it was much easier and we even were able to stop by Walgreen's, to get Lauren shaving cream and some razors, and me, milk and a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We were then able to ascend to the 46th floor and our warm homestead, where I relaxed in a gloriously warm bath in the jacuzzi tub before retiring to bed.