Chicago!

In between all our European travels we somehow found time to fly back to the US for a friend's wedding. The wedding was in Massachusetts but we had a layover in Chicago. Unfortunately for us while we were waiting for the next flight a huge lightening storm rolled in and cancelled a bunch of flights. After spending all day at the airport on Wednesday and looking at a lot of different options, the best plan was to wait it out and catch a flight on Friday. This meant that we had an unexpected tourist day in Chicago. Neither Eric or I had ever been so this was exciting for both of us.

Chicago is exciting... but so is the American breakfast buffet at our hotel!! French toast and bacon, no cold meat or dinner rolls in sight!

Our hotel had a free shuttle to and from the airport and 

to and from the local L Train station.

Public transportation success!

Chicago had some really impressive buildings- 

that were hard to see from the massive amount of fog.

Is that a UFO? Nope- just a foggy building.

 

You can't see the end of the street!

One of our first stops was to the Chicago multicultural center. 

This used to be the public library and is full of original Tiffany mosaics.

Tiffany glass dome.

A second beautiful dome.

 

The fog cleared up a little bit and you could see some scenic shots of the water.

  

But then the fog came back. Here we are walking along Lake Michigan.

A nice view of some building foundations.

A cool indoor space at the Navy Pier.

 Navy Pier from a a distance.

We bought lunch at the pier and found a nice bench to eat it. Eric was unhappy with me for feeding my extra corn tortillas to the wildlife and made me sit far away.

After lunch we took another nice walk along the water.

Chicago has a ton of parks! Here are a few we explored.

Here is that famous thing that Chicago has. This was my first time even being aware of it

 but since I have visited I have seen it referenced twice.

Chicago also has weird giant head sculptures.

And European style fountains.

Last thing we did was get some oh so unhealthy build your own ice cream.

We flew out on Friday and made it to the rehearsal party one hour before it started! 

The party was low key and had this delicious home made buffet.

Here we are with our hat wreaths. It was a traditional Swedish Mid Summer Eve party.

Our good friend Danny did the music for the wedding. 

The wedding was very casual and lovely.

Happy couple!

This is what we wore to the wedding! Afterwards I changed into 

my nice dress for the much more formal party.

The only picture I have from the reception is my chocolate cake- it was great! 

The very next day we flew back to Germany. We had a memorable time in Chicago but it would have been nice to spend more time with our friends (like we were suppose to!). 

Even so- wedding success!