After the Frankenmuth trip, it was time to explore the state just west to Michigan – Illinois & what a better city to visit in Illinois other than Chicago.
The idea of visiting Chicago was special. Chicago has been one of those cities which I knew even though I was a small kid from Patansaongi. I remember whenever I used to hear the news from west, I used to hear stories about big cities like New York, Boston, LA, and Chicago. So, obviously, this trip was a special one since I was visiting the windy city for the first time.
We had booked a cheap Airbnb right in the heart of the Little India. It was a small cozy apartment and we had a bed and bath to ourselves.
The journey kicked off with a road trip to Chicago. This was the first time I was driving so far and definitely gave me chills just thinking about it. Having said that, I made sure to be safe and confident in myself to carry on with the journey without any “incidents”.
Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. The journey was uneventful, which is extremely pleasing when you are driving more than 200 miles for the first time.
I still remember the “Aha” moment when we took the I94 to Chicago and found that we need to drive on the same freeway for the next 208 miles. It was something that I never had experienced and was overjoyed with the idea of driving on the same road for longer duration, which would reduce my panic levels of driving and paying attention to the directions at the same time.
Anyway, we reached our Airbnb and fortunately, found a spot to park our car. Chicago being a transport friendly city, we thought it would be good to park the car at one spot for a couple days and using the public transport to roam around Chicago.
After finding a parking spot a couple minutes from our Airbnb, we got ready for the day that was ahead of us. As it had been more than 3 hours that we had our breakfast, we thought it would be good to start the day by having some Indian food, for which we were craving for.
One of the biggest advantages of booking a place in Little India was that we could find so many places famous for Indian food within 2 minutes’ distance and staying in Little India turned out to be a brilliant decision.
After our belly and heart full of delicious Indian food, it was time to head to different spots that we wanted to visit. We took a tram from Quincy Station and headed to the popular Michigan Avenue in Chicago. As we had a Chicago CityPass, we wanted to cover as many places as we could in a couple days before heading home.
The Skydeck Chicago was the place we really wanted to check out since we thought it would be beautiful to click pictures especially during the evening time surrounded by the spectacular Chicago nightlife. We had to wait at least an hour to get to the spot, but it was totally worth it. I loved the idea of putting the glass cage on the outside the building, giving you the feeling that you are *literally* floating in air. This was one of the most exhilarating experience for me, since I do get acrophobia sometimes.
After the Skydeck Chicago, it was time to head to Millenium Park and witness the famous Bean. As it was the night time and very dark, we couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the park or the Bean. However, the light was just enough for us to see it from all angles and click so many pictures. We tried getting good look at the Bean, before we saw many people surrounding the ice rink that they had put at the heart of the Millenium Park.
I was tempted to go and try ice skating but after realizing the crowd and the long queue for the skates, held my thoughts. After seeing a few people fall many times, we were hungry and wanted to taste the world famous Chicken Biryani at Gareeb Nawaz. We ordered a couple Chicken Biryanis the moment we arrived at the place and devoured it in no time. We were surprised to learn how cheap and good the food was and couldn’t resist ordering some more and Chai to top it off.
It was a good day and definitely loved every part of Chicago exploration.
Next up – second day at Chicago, Illinois.
stochasticity 