Chicago Day 1

My trip to Chicago was amazing. I left early Monday morning and came back Thursday night. I woke up around 5 a.m. Monday to finish packing the rest of my luggage. I had enough time to have a bowl of cereal before heading to my aunt’s house. My flight didn’t leave until 9:40, so traffic would be a non-factor though my aunt was paranoid thinking I would be late heh.

As soon as I arrived at the airport, I received notification that my flight would be delayed about 30 minutes. Passing through security was a breeze. Unfortunately, eating cereal didn’t do much for my hunger, so I went to a storefront and purchased peanuts and a sprite. For the next two hours, I watched various movies and clips on my galaxy tab.

We had one of the smaller airplanes, so the crew took all of the carry-on luggage to the back of the plane. We would be able to claim the luggage after we arrive in Chicago–key information I ignored–and each bag was fitted with a green tag. I sat back in my seat and relaxed until we arrived in Chicago.

I always love sitting in the window seat when I’m on a plane. The forecast called for rain, so I didn’t get to see the Chicago skyline as well as I would have liked. We arrived at O’Hare around 12 Central. I had tickets to go on the Wrigley Field tour at 3, so the plan was to take the hotel shuttle or CTA to my hotel room.

Remember when I said that carry-on luggage could be claimed outside the gate? For some reason, I thought I would have to go down to the baggage claim area. Unfortunately for me, once I left the general terminal, I couldn’t go back to retrieve my luggage without going through security. I talked to an United rep, and he was kind enough to print me up a temporary boarding pass allowing me to go through security.

Security was running slower than usual at this point. On top of that, I was hungry, tired and really stressing about possibly missing my tour. I was finally able to make it through security and quickly tried tracing my steps back to the gate we arrived in. My saving grace was the e-mail from Orbitz telling me our arrival gate. I saw my luggage sitting there behind the desk and was able to retrieve it.

I made my way to the CTA train station and finally made it to my hotel. I checked in around 2. I had just enough time to do a quick washup unfortunately. Since the tour started in an hour, I walked as fast as I could to the train station

There are a total of 48 steps to get to the top:

This one is for jenny:

I was able to make it to Wrigley Field in time before the tour started. It was still raining a little, and the temp was slightly chilly. Here are some pics during my Wrigley Field tour.

The famous manually operated scoreboard:

View of home plate from the bleachers:

Apartments outside of Wrigley:

View of the field from the upper deck:

On the field:

Yours truly:

After the tour was over, I walked over to the Taco Bell to grab a late dinner. I had time to kill since the game didn’t start until 7, so I just stayed around the area until we could go in.

I had upper level seats, and the view was amazing. The temperature did drop dramatically as the night wore on. I stayed through the entire game where the Braves lost big time. I really didn’t care because I enjoyed being able to watch a game at Wrigley Field.

The game was over, so I made it back to my hotel around midnight. I finally crashed after a long day of travelling. This is getting long, but I will post more about my trip later.