That Toddlin' Town.

As I woke up Monday I had a very short pity party. Being that Matt and I have done this long distance thing for over a year and I hate “goodbye days”. I woke up and realized that this would be an almost "good bye" day, it was our last full day on vacation. Where did the time go? We’d been planning for 6ish months and all I had was 24 hours. It wasn’t really that long of a pity party but it set the tone to try to make the most of the time we had left in the Windy City. It was time to make memories AND we did!

Breakfast was great! We found this great place that I’ve only seen as a chain in Chicago, Corner Bakery and Café. It was well priced and the breakfast was pretty great. He had steel cut oatmeal and I had a baked French toast with this amazing bacon. With happy bellies, we headed off to the Art Institute of Chicago. I was excited to see Roy Lichtenstein’s exhibit. I have always liked the Romance and War pieces; they have the cartoon-like look with the narrative bubbles and the dots that extend throughout the image. My other favorite was Magnifying Glass, which takes a closer look at the dots that Lichtenstein is known for. Matt wanted to see the photography but his favorite painting that he wanted to see was American Gothic. I was also excited to see Nighthawks. Overall, art trip was a success.

From the Art Institute, we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The walk took forever and ever and ever and all I could think the entire time was if we walk this far to get there, how bad is it going to be on the way back?

The zoo was very nice. We liked the indoor houses that had displays. Our favorites were the tiger, the polar bear, the otters, and the beavers but the ones that probably made us laugh the most were the gorillas. We watched three pretty closely and one was lounging against a tree. Would reach down and eat a pinecone and then proceed to spit out pieces and repeat this cycle. When I commented to Matt that I was surprised that this gorilla was eating pinecones, he laughed and commented that they were not pinecones….EWWW! Suddenly the other gorillas that were eating cardboard didn’t seem some bad/silly! It was a cute zoo and we were disappointed that we didn’t see the seals, penguins, and some of the others that stayed in from the heat but all in all, a success. Also, I loved the meerkats. One crawled to the top of a 5 foot mound just so he could stare at us in the eye, which was just over the glass.

So next came the dreaded walk back that we decided to make better by making pit stops on the way back. Our first stop was the Lion Head, which we should have spent more time at. Matt enjoyed the beer while I had flavored lemonade. After we became rested and refreshed, we went two doors down to Kelsey’s where we enjoyed more beer and lemonade and cheese sticks. My favorite part of this leg of the trip was “the map bet”. Matt bet that I couldn’t find where we were at on the map and I determined while he timed me. When it was time up, I won that round of drinks! Ha, take that Mr. Knowitall.

From Kelsey’s, we took off to American Hotdog, where we enjoyed an official Chicago Dog, complete with pickles, tomatoes, peppers, relish, and mustard. We saw these made at Wrigley but we felt bad for the scoffing there as we’d done, these toppings were pretty good.

Next we had dessert at the Athenian Room, I’d wanted to share Baklava with Matt. This was an adventure as the restaurant had special requirements. There was a minimum $5 per person spend that was required and credit cards had a minimum of $10, which is all fine and dandy but the Baklava was $2.50! So we ordered what they called “greek caviar”. However, we still didn’t meet the minimum spending requirements!

After more Greek food, we went to Marquees, a great corner bar perfect for people watching. There were high ceilings and some great songs coming out of the jukebox. After these drinks were down, we decided to take a stroll through the most expensive Chicago neighborhood, which was located in Lincoln Park. According to Matt’s sources, these houses cost on average $10mill per sale. We pretended a bit during our stroll. It would have been nice to see the insides of some of them.

We finished Lincoln Park off at Kincaid’s playing trivia. We even got a few however someone can’t get mad that I didn’t know what temperature water boils at, he didn’t get it right either!

We took the rail back with our hurt feet and complained about packing and I avoided it as long as I could.

Best meal: Hmmm…the bacon at the café or the hot dog, don’t make me pick!

“Yeah, I eat my own shit, so what, screw you.” – Gorilla at the Lincoln Park Zoo