Continued from Chicago Day 1 Part 2.

We slept and slept and slept, and what a glorious night of sleep it was. I think we went to bed at around 9:30 or so and it was after 8am when I woke up. Have not slept for that long undisturbed since my kids were born. So awesome.

In fact, my slumber was so awesome, I woke up feeling stiff because I slept so long. While I was getting ready, I managed to pull my right upper back…seriously…can’t believe that. I ended up having to take some painkillers for it. Yup, definitely getting old.

While I slept like a rock, RL had a more difficult time sleeping. She started have allergies back in Austin, we assumed it would just start clearing up once we got to Chicago. Did not get better, but only got worse, and she spent the night unable to breathe. So, first stop for this morning is to get some decongestants at the pharmacy.

The weather is slightly warmer today. Sunny with no cloud or rain in sight, cool. We’ve been watching the weather carefully for the past few weeks to see if it’ll rain, seemed to have dodged it so far.

At the Walgreens just right around the corner. Love how in a dense city, everything just seems to be a couple of blocks of walking away.

Got meds for RL, now we can get going and get some coffee.

That’s a fancy looking Target.

Yup, we are tourists.

There’s a homeless man across the road. There seems to be one on every major corner here in Chicago.

Our hotel building.

Across the street from our hotel is this cafe that gets good reviews.

Looks very promising. I like them frou frou coffee shops.

RL was very happy to find these.

Look who shows up. While RL and I spent the morning sleeping in and what not, these two spent their morning…at the gym. Making us look bad…

After coffee, went back to the hotel room to drop something off, and instead of pushing the door close button, I accidentally pushed the call button. Good thing it only called the front desk and not the fire department. Oops.

11:20am, finally on our way to check outour first tourist sight today. We are heading to Willis Tower for the observatory, since it’s one of the attractions in the city that we can use our coupon on. AB and LL will head out and see a radio museum of some sort instead. After that, we’ll all meet for lunch.

Hah, this was funny. Pair of shoes and a toothbrush just in the middle of the sidewalk. Reminds me of that one time in Japan where there was a big pile of vomit and a pair of shoes, again, in the middle of the sidewalk.

Haven’t seen one of these since being in Europe.

That’s a fancy glass McDonald’s.

It’s easier to find your way when you can just follow the building. For some reason doesn’t look that tall to me…

Giant dragon fly in the middle of the city. Sad it was dead though, it was so colorful.

The Chicago Board of Trade Building. That’s one majestic looking building. I will always remember this building as the Audi ad where it was covered in snow with TTs driving all around it.

We are here.

Entrance for the observatory.

Sigh, lines. This is just the line to get through security.

With our sightseeing coupon, we were able to bypass the line to get tickets, but are now yet in another line.

It wraps around to the other side. This is quite disappointing. Did not expect there to be this long of a line on a Wednesday.

Wait, what! The line that we all waited for wasn’t to the elevators, but it was to a short film about the building.

NO! I don’t want to watch a short film, just let us onto the elevators!

After the film(10min or so), which was semi interesting, we were let out of the theater into yet another line. This one is finally for the elevators.

Finally! It’s taken us almost an entire hour to get to this point from the moment we entered the building. Boo!

As to be expected, with such a long wait, there’s a pretty big crowd of people up here. I imagine they make everyone go watch a short film before the elevator to try and manage the crowd up here in the observatory.

View is pretty awesome though. I do try to get a vantage view from every city that I visit, but RL is getting tired of the waiting in these lines.

Love the red building.

It’s so bright outside, so tough to get the exposure right.

Did not work well even with flash…but too lazy to play with the settings. It was pretty crowded up here.

The reason why I wanted to come up here was because there are 4 windows here with glass bottoms that extend out beyond the building.

Almost there. Ugh, this line moves so slowly.

Finally, after 13min of waiting, I’ve got my photo. RL waited with me, and then finally when it was our turn to step on the glass, she got scared and refused. It wasn’t bad actually. I was mostly just relieved that the wait is done and now I get to go wait in another line, the line to get down to the ground.

Sigh, more waiting. Fortunately, this line seems to move at a decent pace.

It only took us about 15min to get on the elevator from the long line. I say that as if 15min is a good thing.

Then of course, we were paraded through like 5 different gift shops before we could exit.

Then one last elevator from the basement level that we are at to ground level. Finally!

Chicago has quite a bit of large scale street art.

Art Institute of Chicago, we’ll be heading there after lunch. But first, we are already running late to meet AB and LL for lunch due to the long lines at the observatory.

This building reminds me of some buildings that I’ve seen in India.

Lunch spot.

Yes please. I’ll be needing this after waiting in all those long frustrating lines.

Fried pickles. RL likes them, I ate some because I am very hungry.

Finally the food is here.

Love fish and chips.

Did not expect that to be a half cook fried egg.

Dessert? Yes please. Irish coffee, damn good Irish coffee.

Bread pudding for AB and LL. They were a fan.

Now on the way to Art Institute, which you can see on the left side of the photo here.

Narrow building squeezed in between two buildings.

What does the lion say? Roar. I miss my kids…sort of…

So, it’s 2:40pm and we are in a predicament. We looked at the map of the Art Institute and it’s giant. We’ve got reservations for dinner at 6:30pm for our 3 year wedding anniversary, and we’d like to get a nap in somewhere in there…Wish we had more time to browse at our leisure here. Oh well.

Again, posting pictures of the pieces that I find interesting. RL think I post way too many photos from the museums, I think I am starting to agree with her…

Really cool Tiffany lamp.

Can you spot snow white and the 7 dwarfs?

Did not expect to see this here. I know the original is in OKC, and it’s massive. Didn’t know they also cast these in miniature bronze sizes.

Sometimes, a painting is famous and then you see it and you don’t quite know why.

Do you see vaginas?

I actually wanted to see this, but it was on loan in Europe. Poop.

I really like this one.

To be continued at Chicago Day 2 Part 2.