One of my best vacations!

Have you been to Chicago? if you haven't, I tell u, u must go..it's the place to be...it's an architectural heaven and the city surely knows how to attract crowds...they have the tallest, the largest, the oldest...name it and they have it!

So we went on a week vacation to Chicago, it began on 29th Sept. and ended on 5th Oct...so we were there for 6 days...and i tell u we were running out of time! one city and 6 days is left...that is how Chicago is!
when i look back the things i remember most about chicago are:
1. the architecture boat cruise
2. segway tour
3. wicked "the broddway show"
4. king tut's exhibition

Chicago is a city that has alot of history...some 200 years of it now...and that's quite something, considering how young US is...lake Michigan flanks one side of chicago..and it gives the city a beautiful green-blue color!
So on our first day of the vacation we decided to hit the museums...since both me and G are big museums enthusiasts...we were really looking forward to it...we started with the "Museum of Contemporary art", now this is a museum which tells you about alternative sources of energy, construction material, conservation of nature, wildlife and such things, not a a cliche "museum" and that's what made it interesting, the best part of it was the section with a myriad of pictures from different events, landing on moon, eclipses, birth of a flower and many more...the entrance had an interesting art displayed.

Since I am covering Museums here, let me continue with the museums, Chicago sure knows how to make the best looking structures, and this is well exemplified by the museums they have, we picked the ones we were most interested in:
Field Museum
Museum of Science and Industry
and other places like Adler Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium.
What interested me most about the Field Museum, which is a histroy museum was the King Tut's exhibits, they were so many and so well explained and the mere fascination we have for this boy king made it all the more interesting!
The planetarium also had a special going on how the kings calculated the years and the day, their knowledge of the constellations and how they revered these was really interesting! G slept off in this show...but i thoroughly enjoyed it, for we had just come out of the exhibits of the king and this seemed lk a bonus treat to me!!!

Then we did the architecture boat cruise, one hell of an experience, knowing when the different buildings were constructed, what's changed about them over the years and the uniqueness of each of them, this is really a very interesting tour and i would suggest everyone should take this tour, even if you are not interested in architecture, this still is a very entertaining tour. The must visit buildings are the John Hancock Observatory and the Sears Towers!

One thing we didn't do right was that our hotel was a bit far from downtown, which is where everything significant is. We ended up being frustrated by traffic a lot of times, so i would suggest anyone visiting Chicago should stay close to downtown.

Then came our Segway tour, now this is a cool way of seeing the city, we had registered with the tour people before we left Dallas, so we got there well in time for the demo record and then we were given some lessons, now let me tell you that this machine is really not as easy as it seems ok...i was uneasy on it and so the guide (who much to my dismay and luck saw from my face that i am scared) helped me through most of it..staying close to me and making sure i did the right things...but this happened after i had already fallen off the damn thing...rather funny it was...but the tour is really cool! Again a must-see/do in Chicago.

Chicago downtown has some nice restaurants that we sampled, of course there is the UNO pizzeria, but i would suggest to go there well in time before hunger pans strike you for it will be close to 1 hour wait no matter when u go...they made superlicious pizza!!!

Navy pier a fun place to wrap up an evening and oh the architecture tours begin here itself, you might have to check the listings to see when the tours are. This is located by the Lake Michigan and it has rides/food/local shops/souvenirs and such...we also saw a joker/magician doing some tricks. There is a popcorn gourmet shop here that sell different kinds of popcorns, we liked the caramel popcorn...so if u like gourmet popcorn, you know where to go! Some stunning stained glass paintings can also be found here.

If you to Chicago and do not go to Broadway, then it's a waste of a trip if you are from a place like Dallas...so we went to see Wicked, my second experience with musicals. All this while I used to think that Bombay Dreams was the best thing ever, but how wrong i was i came to know when i saw wicked!! it really was brilliantly done, the production, the props, the performers, the music everything was simply amazing!

Chicago is not a conventional honeymoon spot, but both of us really wanted to go there and it was truly an amazing experience, we liked the city so much that we going to visit it again soon!
So if you are craving a vacation and are not sure where to go, go see Chicago, it's a lovely place to go...but just check the weather before you do that...it gets pretty nasty there in the winters :)