Chicago

Friday morning we were on our merry way to Chicago , the windy city . I have never been there before .... We drove down to Buffalo to catch a flight there and arrived nice and early . There is actually proper transit from O'Hare unlike our embarrassing transit in Toronto ... if you ever come here you will see , it is pathetic ! We got to our hotel in the Central Loop called Club Quarters http://www.clubquarters.com/loc_chicago.php  at roughly 2 pm and immediately dropped our backpacks off to head out to eat . 





When you are in Chicago you HAVE to try a deep dish pizza !!!! This was the first thing we did in the windy city :) we wandered around and found ourselves at the very popular Giordano's http://www.giordanos.com/ ... My girlfriend and myself are really fond of eating our pizza with very thin crust so this was the opposite end of the spectrum or so you would think ! We ordered the smallest pizza for the 2 of us and let me tell ya that pizza was good for at least 3 people and we really did not finish it . There was not that much crust (dough) it was just a ridiculous amount of cheese and other toppings .... honestly it changed how i think about pizza .... i would definitely suggest trying a deep dish at Giordano's if you ever go there . It was AMAZING !

After eating we went down to the Navy Pier to meet our friend Jen so we could take our Architectural River tour of Chicago which was suggested to us by our new friend Cat ...thanks Cat for the hook up ! I am not a fan of being on water at all but i can honestly say it is the best vantage point to take of Chicago as there are a lot of tall buildings that are quite amazing . The boat tour we took was Seadog http://www.seadogcruises.com/Chicago/river-lake-architectural-tour the view was well worth the price of admission :) Unfortunately i was not in the best of spirits on this day and after a day of too much walking i just wanted to go sleep so the evening was not as eventful as it could have been .... happens to the best of us.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast downstairs at the pub Elephant & Castle http://www.elephantcastle.com/chicago_adams/ food was great and the atmosphere , beer and service was all top notch ... fell in love with this beer there called Green Line , really really good IPA http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/green_line_pale_ale/93.php try it if you ever get the chance . No i wasn't drinking beer for breakfast LOL , i tried it there the night before ...saw a couple Villa fans in there so i popped in for a bevvy .


After breakfast we headed to the Sears Tower , to head up to the Sky Deck !  We got there at around 845 AM and it was dead , no one there amazing because we heard about the long crazy lineups ....if we got there 10 minutes later we would have experienced them . The view up there is amazing , you get to see the whole city from up top the tower . The Sky Deck are these glass platforms that stick out of the building and are fully encased so there is no wind or anything to blow you off ... you can't fall off so it is fully safe ... i witnessed people scared out of their wits stepping out on the ledge but honestly i didn't find it scary at all :) if you are in Chicago check this out but go early !!!  http://www.theskydeck.com/

After Sky deck we went for a bit of a stroll to Millennium Park to see the Giant Bean . It is this giant art installation . Chicago is great for that , the art and architecture there is amazing ... if i had more time in Chicago there are many other things to do and see but this trip was mainly to go see my favorite football (soccer) team Aston Villa , and it was almost time to go meet my heroes at the autograph signing . Got some pics with Bent , that was one of the 2 players i wanted to really meet and did :) After the signing we headed off to the pub to meet the rest of the Aston Villa supporters !!! Our amazing host to Chicago was Simon Leach , he organized everything and did an amazing job of it , he runs the Chicago chapter for Villa Supporters and is a great all around guy . The pub he organized as our home base was The Halsted Harp http://www.halstedharp.com/ amazing pub ! He also organized all you can drink for $20 for 2 hours and $20 bus ride from the pub to the park and back ( with beer on the bus ) i must have had about 4 or 5 during this period :P

When we got to the game after singing numerous Villa songs we finally got to share our voices at Toyota Park and we ROCKED that stadium !!! I don't think i have ever had that much fun in my life at a sporting event , as you can see i am beside my new buddy Bert with our ginormous Mexican beers shouting and having the time of our lives . I met so many good people on this short trip and i hope to stay in touch with them all through our love for our club ASTON VILLA !!! Back to the story , i was totally trashed the game ended with a Villa win thanks to a header from Gabby . final was 1-0  . we all got on the bus sang some songs to our bus driver and headed back to the Harp ....when i got there i have no clue what happened but next thing you know i was headed to the hotel . 

Sunday morning we headed back home , head was very fuzzy and i might still be a tad hung over ... feeling shitty but it was well worth the trip . Chicago gets 2 thumbs up ala Siskel & Ebert :)