why hello windy city...

when i started my "to do" list at the first of this year, going to a new city was near the top of the list.

i love to travel.

i think i would give away one of my kidneys to have samantha brown's job on the travel channel ...ok, not really, but it would be an amazing job.

in july, i started my "let's go on a fun trip campaign" to my roommates. apparently, i'm not too bad on the sales front because they actually bought into the idea...with very little persuasion.

we ended up choosing chicago. kate and caroline had been before and loved the city and leah and i would be the "first timers" on the trip. how perfect for my blog!

the weekend was great; i fell in LOVE with the city!

i could literally write a novel on the weekend, so i'll spare you all with details.

instead, i'm going to give you the top #10 funny/random/good things that happened on our trip.

10. leah accidentally left her driver's license at the hotel one night and as we each got carded she asked the host if she could use her starbucks card rather than her driver license's....the look on their face was priceless.

9. smelly cabs. caroline, leah and i witnessed the worst smelling cab. we drove 14 blocks with our shirt tops covering our noses.

8. 2:30 a.m. yes, that's about the time we got back to the hotel every night. it was like the college years all over again. :)

7. just as a reference, you may want to avoid the southwest airlines counter at midway. supposedly i "cut" in line and this southwest employee thought it was appropriate to yell at me.

i responded with, "i'm sorry, i didn't know i cut in line, you don't have to be ugly about it."

unfortunately, she was responsible for taking my checked bag too. i had $20 saying that i would never see that luggage again....to my surprise, my bag made it to birmingham!

6. on saturday night (or morning) as we were getting into the cab to leave a rockit grill, kate realized that she left her credit card. she jumped out of the cab to go back inside. leah felt that kate shouldn't be left alone and jumped out too....little did leah know that she would be out another 2 hours (until 4:30 a.m.) going to another hotspot in chicago with kate. ha!

5. toast. this is a reason in and of itself to go to chicago.

best. pancakes. ever.

4. leah and her conversations with cab drivers. leah felt the need to interview each cab driver that drove us around. we knew where they were from, how old they were, what professional sports teams they were fans of, how long that had lived in chicago...funny how i know more about several chicago cab drivers than i do some of my coworkers.

3. westin hotel toliets. we got to know each of the westin plumbers very well because they visited our hotel room about 4 times during our 3 day trip. now, this may sound like one of us had a little rumble jumble going on...but that is NOT correct. apparently, the hotel sewer systems do not work well and according to one of our new plumber friends, this happens ALL the time in the hotel. they will be installing a new system soon.

2. at&t and chicago do not mix. there was absolutely no service...anywhere. lucky for us, we met some nice guys at lou malhatis pizza place that had verizon and they used their phones to check us in for our flight the next day.

1. favorite fact that i learned about chicago: it is not called the "windy city" because it is windy. in the late 1800's chicago had terrible fire that burned much of the city down. as they were rebuilding the city, they thought having the world fair in chicago would be a good boost for the economy. chicago politicians went to washington to lobby for the world fair to be brought to chicago. a writer for a new york paper commented on their trip and called all chicago politicians "windbags"...funny, some things never change!

love,

alison