Chicago Here We Come

 Argh!! 4:30 am came way too early.  George and I left the house at 4:30 am to go pick up Kris and then Sharon.  We were at the airport a little after 5:30 am.  The traffic was not bad at all at that time of day.  

Sharon, Kris and me - bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Art in the Portland airport

We had our morning cup of coffee before getting on to the plane.

Sharon and Kris

My pre-ordered breakfast sandwich of ham and eggs.  Not bad

Chicago airport.  The flight was uneventful.  

Margie (Jeanne's sister-in-law) met us at the airport with Jeanne.  She drove us to our apartment!! What a gift.  She pointed out many points of interest on our way.

The Chicago skyline.  Margie seemed very comfortable driving around downtown Chicago.

The four of us: Jeanne, Sharon, me and Kris.

The lobby of our apartment. We noticed a coffee shop in the back. There were some very detailed instructions on how to get into the building which we did not have to use because someone was leaving just as we arrived.

Our apartment was on the 7th floor

Wow.  What a nice apartment with a fabulous view

We didn't quite drop our bags and go but we did not hang around long.

First stop - lunch.  We had to have a Chicago Dog!

Quite the place.  

We continued our walk to Trader Joes grocery store to pick up a few essentials! Wine and snack foods for our afternoon sit down times.

Walked home.  We had time to unpack and settle in.  We had some of the wine.  Ahh.  We got to watch the sunset.

Note the EL - the Elevated Train in the foreground.

Our dinner reservation at Monteverde was at 7:30 pm.  We headed out at 7 pm to hail a cab.  We decided to support the Chicago taxi service on this trip. 

What a meal we had.  We had heard about this place from the TV show "Somebody Feed Phil".  Chef Sarah Greuneberg.  We ordered several small plates that we shared.

Artichoke and sunchoke crostino (2 of them made it crostini)

Burrata E Ham

Heirloom tomato and feta cheese

Spaghetti Al Pomodoro

Egg Yolk Raviolo 

Topped it off with a dessert of a chocolate tart with meringue, ice cream and grapes.

We hailed a cab and headed home.  There is a Curb App that Jeanne downloaded to call a cab for our future needs. 

Jeanne brought some Bailey's from home that we were happy to enjoy.  We will keep a running tab of group expenses and who pays.  At the end we will figure out who needs to be reimbursed.  We are such good travelers.  We are AWEsome.