August 2011 - Chicago & LA

Remind me that I need to attack that Toffee Apple store at O'Hare airport on my way out of here. Mum spotted it, looks amazing.

Our drive in was probably one of the most scenic drives from airport to Hotel that we have ever had (I don't want to remember that incident between Rome and Sorrento). Instead of taking the highway crawl our driver took us through the suburbs. Long street after long street of suburban home. Tiny squares of properties, no fences, green everywhere and an obvious pride in their houses. Closer to the city and the tiny squares become more cubes with another storey on top. The closer to the city the bigger the houses, apartments. It's so clean! I should have had my camera out but alas I did not.

We arrived at the Hotel and considering the 25 hours of travelling it took to get there we didn't look too bad. I just think it could have been much worse if I hadn't had people staring at me in the LAX bathroom as I desperately tried to repair the damage caused by 12 hours of plane. The Hotel Lobby is on Level 7 of the building and the rooms start from Level 30 up. We are on 39, looking South West so unfortunately no Lake in sight but we can see the sprawling metropolis out to the horizon. I would insert picture here but I have since realised I have done a New York on myself. I left the cable to my compact camera at home, but in my defense this time I thought I could use the same cable as my dslr... yeah, not the case. So added to the shopping list will be yet another card reader, maybe this time Dad won't 'borrow' it.

Anyhow shower, makeup, hair quasi dried with the crappiest hairdryer I've seen at a FS we headed for dinner in the fine dining restaurant. Our snippet view of the lake fast became a view of rain, but the food more than made up for that. Our biggest problem was not necessarily what to eat (although there were about 4 options I would have equally enjoyed) it was to have one glass of wine or two? With Dad not there to eat entree was it ok to order champagne to start? Did we really care what they thought of us? Well, no, we wanted the Champagne to start the trip. Now it was one of those meals where you ate everything on the plate, even if you couldn't figure out exactly what you were eating. I had the lamb... delicious. Mum's beef had this beautiful slight crust on it that was equally delicious. One of the sides on my plate was the lamb sausage and I could have easily eaten that over and over again. Worthy of it's Michelin Star? Oh yes, it's a shame we won't be able to have dinner there again whilst we are here because it is closed on Sunday through Tuesday. And I haven't even made it to dessert. Chocolate Cherries (Dad would have loved this one) and Sorbets. The Sorbets (especially the Passionfruit) made the sorbets from Bistro Moncur taste almost bland. KA POW Flavour. If I had a single centimetre of empty space in my stomach I would have been half tempted to order a second round of dessert (just the Passionfruit even though the peach and cherry were both very nice too).

With full to the brim stomachs we stumbled outside the Hotel for a little walk... our first of I'm sure many walks down the Magnificant Mile. We were especially excited when we looked at some majorly gawky gems in a window before taking two steps forward and realising that store was Tiffany's.

And even though the shops were closed we came back to the Hotel to find the first of our shopping had been delivered to the room. God Bless 3 day Fedex deliveries that don't require a billing address in the US =)