Labor Day Weekend In Chicago! :: Part 1

It's back to reality today after a wonderful long weekend of visiting Le Copain in Chicago. Sighhh.
With the exception of a minor flight delay on the way there and the fact that it went by way too quickly, this weekend was perfect 


On Thursday night, I got to Le Copain's apartment super late after a delayed flight and then navigating my way from O'Hare to Streeterville (Le Copain's neighborhood within Chicago) via Chicago public transit. It was kind of funny having to figure out the trains in Chicago since I've finally settled into the comfort of knowing how the trains in NYC work. I guess I'm always up for a challenge though, and luckily that all went without a hitch.

On Friday, Le Copain had classes until mid-afternoon. I spent the morning relaxing in (and cleaning ;p) his apartment and then went out to explore the area for a bit before meeting him and some of his new friends for lunch at Panera (whose creamy tomato soup I have been craving for like ever). 

After Le Copain finished up his classes, we hung at his apartment and watched tons and tons of the non-stop Simpson's marathon. (We actually did a lot of that in our down moments over the weekend and tried to pick out as many pop-culture references as we could).

For dinner, we went out for four-cheese deep dish pizza at Gino's East like we did over winter break. It was just as delicious as I had remembered, but this time we got to sit outside, which I don't think I would have ever been able to imagine doing back in January. Like back then we had issues making it from the hotel to the restaurant in the cold. For the record, the hotel we stayed at is two buildings over...

Post-dinner, we strolled around for awhile and wound up at Navy Pier, which has a bunch of fair-like attractions. We decided to play mini-golf and ride the ferris wheel. Mini golf was really fun, although the course sloped weirdly at times which led to many (frustrating, but somewhat amusing?) almost-hole-in-ones. After mini-golf, we rode the ferris wheel, which was incredible. We got some of the best views of Chicago from it, or at least the best ones I saw all weekend.

Once we were off the FW, we walked around Navy Pier some more and popped into Garrett Popcorn (...Get it?... Popped?! :D...) and bought a bag of the Chicago Mix (cheddar corn mixed with caramel corn) before walking home. It seriously made for the best post-pier/late night snack and was a sweet (and salty) end to my first full day in Chicago.