Chicago: Day Two

Monday Chris and I checked out of our Holiday Inn downtown and took a cab to the Hyatt at the convention center. We found it ironic that the chic and sophisticated (and much pricier) Hyatt did not include a free breakfast, free Internet, or even a refrigerator in the room, while we had all of those amenities at the less expensive Holiday Inn. Why is that? After dropping off our luggage, we took a long walk to the museum district and passed Soldier Field.

Angela in front of the Chicago skyline

Soldier Field (on our way to the museum district)

We arrived at our destination, the Field Museum, and spent most of our day there. Of course, we saw Sue, the biggest and most complete T-rex ever discovered…

Chris with Sue at the Field Museum

We also saw lots of Egyptian artifacts and mummies…

Chris and a very old mummy

We were joined by Kirk, Chris’ co-worker, and we all did the Underground Adventure (we were shrunken to tiny bugs for this one).

We explored the Underground Adventure exhibit

After an exhausting day at the Field, in which I realized my footwear does not hold up to all the walking Chicago requires, we took the train downtown to the Weber Grill restaurant.

Chris and Kirk in front of Tribune Tower, which has rocks and stones from buildings around the world embedded into its walls

At the Weber Grill Monday night

After dinner, we took a walk to the John Hancock Center. Rather than pay the $15 admission to the observation deck on the 94th floor, we took a local’s advice and went to the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor. 

View from the Hancock Tower 96th floor

In the Signature Lounge

This was a hoity-toity place (no cover, though) that seated us at the bar, not by a window. After some window seats opened up, I asked the manager if we could take our drinks and move over there for a view. He conferred with another manager for a good 3-4 minutes and then told me that if some other seats opened up directly behind us, he would be sure to move us. I found this odd and was a little miffed, but let it go. Awhile later, some people left and I noticed a couple who had just been seated at the bar being relocated to those seats—the exact ones promised to us by that manager. Okay, that was too much for me—I marched over to the manager and let him know that we were offended by their actions and that we would be taking our business elsewhere. That’s when he suddenly found us an open table with a view, but we left anyway. By the way, the Hancock tower elevators are some of the fastest in the world—they are ridiculously quick, so much that our ears were popping as we flew skyward. We shared a cab back to our hotel. Keep in mind, Chris and Kirk were on a business account and pretty much used their credit cards. There was a sign in every cab that listed our rights as a rider, one of which was the right to use a card. Someone had already told us that the cabbies will sometimes tell you they don’t take credit cards, but they are required by the city to do so. Sure enough, we get back to the hotel and our driver tells Kirk his machine is broken or some such nonsense. I was trying to tell Chris that he was required by law to take the card, but Chris was shushing me to listen to the exchange between Kirk and the driver. Finally, Kirk gives him a twenty and the cabby gives him change. Later, Kirk realized that the crook skimmed a tip for himself off the top, along with refusing to take Kirk’s card. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth of Chicago.

Complete Chicago Album