Sometimes the best thing about playing Joe Tourist is getting hopelessly lost and ending up God knows where. When my friend Christian and I started sightseeing in Chicago on Wednesday, we really didn’t have an itinerary or an agenda.
What Christian DID have was a German travel guide called, coincidentally enough — “Chicago”. He would leaf through the book and pick out the weirdest, most random places (and shoppes) to visit. I would look at him blankly. Not with scorn or disdain, mind you, but instead it was peppered with shades of “WTF”?
Christian likes to shop. And while I like to shop too, I do NOT enjoy it for hours upon hours on end. Our tour guide Steve gave us the 411 on where to go and what to do … and then we narrowed down our choices.
As we were walking towards our first destination, we happened to walk by the American Girl doll store. If you’ve been living under a rock (or you’re German) and are unaware what this place is, let me enlighten you. It’s a creepy place filled with creepy little dolls that weird me out. And yet Christian wanted to go inside. Yes, imagine three grown men walking through a store like that with no tween girls in tow. Security detailed us closely, with good reason. It wasn’t until Christian spotted his third 8-year old girl dressed up like the doll she was carrying that he was ready to leave … and pronto.
Next was a trip to the top of the Hancock building. The views are spectacular and legendary, save for rainy days like Wednesday. “There’s ZERO visibility at the top,” announced the ticket agent. Okay, strike one … but we were still completely undaunted
Then it was off to do one of those architectural boat ride tours. It was a cold, rainy, miserable ride that featured an improv comedian that yammered on for 60 minutes about how cold, rainy and miserable it was. Oh yeah, and there were some cool buildings to look at too.
By this point, I was getting hungry. It happens approximately every 10-12 minutes when I’m on vacation. Steve quickly hustled us to a delightful place called Grahamwich — the eponymously named sandwich shop of Chef Graham Elliott. The website calls it “one part tasty filling; 2 parts bready goodness”. I call it bliss.
From root beer infused pulled pork BBQ to gourmet grilled cheese, each sandwich is a mischievous take on the classic lunch staple. The Waldorf Chicken salad sandwich was so good; I actually asked the server who Waldorf was just so I could put him in my will.
We ended up visiting Chicago’s “Second City” on a whim that evening … mainly because we got impossible-to-get tickets at the last minute. It was a veritable laugh fest from beginning to end as comedians would try to out do each other in some sort of weird Improv Olympics. Going to “Second City” needs to be something everyone does once before they die. Speaking of …
… I know it was a good first day because my get-up-and-go-German friend was completely dead to the world after 12 hours of gallivanting around. As God as my witness, he started snoring mid-sentence. If Day 2 wasn’t going to kill him, it was going to kill me … or I would die trying.
You both look so adorable!
my first, and frightening, american girl store experience happened when i was pregnant with devin. i naively thought this was something i should know about if i was to have a girl. as i ascended the escalator to the shopping levels, i passed a mother, daughter and doll all dressed in the same outfit. i swear! at the top of the escalator, i turned around, descended and could not exit quickly enough.