First Day in Chicago

Friday was our first full day in Chicago and it was forecast to be a sunny day so we headed straight to Navy Pier, the 2nd biggest tourist destination in Chicago. Here we walked out to the end of the pier which is 1010 meters long (apparently it is two times the length of Willis (Sears) Tower, the 3rd tallest building in the world) as well as checking out the various tourist traps along the pier. This included a ferris wheel that gave us a good view of the city skyline.

The view back towards the city from 3/4 of the way down Navy Pier

Self explanatory

The view of 1/2 the city skyline from the ferris wheel

After the ferris wheel we decided to do a water architecture tour of the city that had been recommended to us. This was really cool and quite informative and I got some amazing photos but you will have to wait for me to post them on facebook. I have included on here not the best, but the most important, the Willis Tower! We also found out that the two most recent Batman films were filmed in Chicago and so we got to see some of the buildings featured.

I can't remember which building this is but it looks pretty awesome :)

That big black building in the middle is the 3rd tallest building in the world. Willis 'Sears' Tower
(originally named the Sears Tower, Willis Insurance bought the building and changed the name but the people of Chicago refuse to call it the Willis Tower)

Next we headed into the city and wandered along the Magnificent Mile (actually .8 of a mile) which is the main shopping area of Chicago. They have some great discount stores such as Nordstrom Rack (Nordstrom is the David Jones of USA and 'Rack' is where all the out of season clothes go to live). I really needed a new wallet so I got a $70 Kenneth Cole wallet for $23.

By now it is about 4pm and we actually haven't eaten all day so we decide it is time to try the famous deep-dish pizza of Chicago, and, as it happens, one of the famous places to have it, Gino's East, is less than a block from where we were shopping. The place is covered in graffiti, in a loved way, where it looks like patrons have written on every surface over the years, from the chair seats , to the bricks on the wall, to the ATM in the lobby (a bit like the Broad Arrow Tavern Mum but to a far bigger extent!). So we order one of the deep-dish pizzas which have a wait time of 45mins to an hour. When it arrives, it is the size of a quiche (we ordered the smallest available) and the same kind of concept as a quiche. See picture below. We can not understand why this is considered nice. It was basically a bowl of cheese (and various fillings) in a massive crust, not like pizza crust but QUICHE crust)! WTF. Needless to say, we didn't feel to great after eating it. I think I will be sticking to normal pizza crust in the future!

Gino's East

Deep-dish Pizza
(never again!)