Dorothy Piotrowski’s blog

Since we ran out of time on our way down to Chicago, we decided to stop by Michael Jackson’s boyhood home in Gary, Indiana on our way home.  When we got off of the highway and started down the road, we were struck back by how poor this city seems.  It looks like about ninety percents of the businesses we saw were closed.  As we made our way to the house, alot of the homes in the area were boarded up.  Some of them even were burned down.  We saw a sign on one house that said $500 down and $250/month.

The Jackson family home is at 2300 Jackson Street.  There is a new black wrought iron fence around the property and what seems to be some type of memorial for Michael but it was covered in a blue tarp.  We are guessing that it will be unveiled on the first anniversary of his death.

We left Gary and headed to Mishawaka to The Christmas Tree Shop.  We picked up a few things here and started our journey home.  The drive was uneventful except for at the border.  There was no line up and we zipped through customs in about one minute.

It was a great mini trip and I can’t wait to go back to Chicago again.

We wanted to learn more about Chicago so we found on TripAdvisor something called the Chicago Food Planet  tours.  It combines two of my favourite things - eating and sightseeing.  We decided to take the Near North Food tour which visits the Gold Coast, Old Town and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.  The tour takes you to “mom and pop” type shops, most of which have been around forever.

Our tour guide was Kent and he really made the tour enjoyable and very informative.  The tour started at Ashkenaz Deli which is a Jewish deli.  Here we actually made our own reuben sandwich with pastrami and all the toppings.  It was a quick walk to our next stop which was Tea Gschwendner, where they sell over 300 varieties of tea.  Here we got to sample a cranberry mango iced tea while learning so much about tea.  While walking towards our next stop, we passed by the original Playboy mansion.

The next three stops were very close together in Old Town.  First up was The Spice House.  We learned about the origins of cinnamon which is actually dried up bark.  After that we went to Old Town Oil.  This by far was my favourite stop.  We did oil and vinegar shooters - yes oil and vinegar shooters.  We had so much fun mixing different types of oil and vinegars together.  The overall favourite was the tangerine balsamic vinegar mixed with blood orange extra virgin olive oil.  Next up was The Fudge Pot.  This shop has been around since 1963 making the most amazing chocolate items.  We feasted on chocolate carmel crunch, which was mouth-watering.

We walked a couple of blocks to Delightful Pastries.  This is a European pastry and bake shop.  What I loved about this place is that it was started by a Polish lady.  We got to sample cheese and potato pierogis and a pastry which resembles cheese and apricot danish.

Our last stop was in Lincoln Park which was about a 20 minute walk.  Bacino’s Pizza served us their very famous stuffed spinach pizza.  It’s the only pizza that has been recognized as being heart healthy by the Chicago Heart Association.  I really enjoyed the pizza and I don’t even like spinach.  Since we had been walking for three hours, we decided to take a cab back to the car. 

You can’t come to Chicago and not visit Harpo Studios where The Oprah Show is taped.  We didn’t see Oprah but we did make a quick stop at her store, where she sells new items, plus some of her own pre-worn items.  We headed back downtown to do a bit of shopping at Nordstrom Rack before heading to Millennium Park.  The park has something called the Cloud Gate.  It’s a silver sculpture that resembles a bean.  I believe it was inspired by liquid mercury.  We had a lot of fun walking around the sculpture taking lots of pictures, with the skyline of Chicago reflecting in it.

Chicago has the second largest Polish population outside of Poland.  We had to get some stuff for my parents so we found Little Poland’s Dollar Store.  This store was jammed with so much Polish stuff it was making my head spin.

We were kinda tired from all that walking in the sun so we headed back to the hotel to enjoy our Maggiano’s Little Italy leftovers, followed by some relaxing and then a quick dip in the hot tub.

Since we only have two full days here in Chicago, we wanted to get an overview of the city and decided to do that by taking a river cruise.  Luckily for us, all of the cruises depart from The Navy Pier.  The pier sits on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan and it’s Chicago’s number one tourist attraction.  It has restaurants, shops, rides and it’s the departure point for all of the river/lake cruises.  We weren’t sure exactly how long it would take us, but we got down to the pier in about twenty minutes.  We spent a couple of hours exploring the pier, and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading to the boat.

Our Architecture River Cruise was with Shoreline Sightseeing.  What was nice about this boat was that it was open air so that you can get a 360 degree view.  The tour was approximately an hour and it’s amazing what you can learn in such a short period of time.  We were worried that we wouldn’t see anything because the fog was so thick.  But as we got closer to downtown, the fog magically disappeared.  It was so cool seeing the different types of architecture.  Chicago is a fascinating city and I want to come back again to explore more of it.

At the end of our cruise, our tour guide said that Shoreline Sightseeing offers a water taxi service.  We went to their information booth and it would only cost us $4 to get to The Magnificient Mile.  The mile is home to some of the finest shopping and restaurants.  We spent a few hours walking up and down the mile.

One of the reasons that we booked the Hampton Inn was that it was basically next door to Maggiano’s Little Italy.  This is one of our favourite restaurants.  Karen was able to sweet talk the waiter into allowing us to eat family style, even though we didn’t have the minimum 4 people.  What that entails is picking two each of appetizers, salads, pastas, entrees and dessert.  And so began the over two hour dinner.  The food was fabulous and we have lots of leftovers (three bags to be exact) which we will enjoy tomorrow.

Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow.

The first long weekend of the summer and we decided that we need to head out of town.  Many people have suggested that we should visit Chicago so we thought why not.  Luckily for us it’s only seven and a half hours which is easily doable for a long weekend.  Our adventure this time includes Karen’s niece Teresa from Barrie.

We left Kitchener around 9am and had a quick drive to Sarnia.  Once we got to Sarnia, the drive came to a standstill.  We’re not sure why, but It took us close to two hours to cross the border.  Every minute in that line was cutting down our shopping time.  We finally got across and stopped at the Cracker Barrel to pick up lunch.

During the middle of our drive, we found out that Teresa’s brother Dave and his fiance Cathy welcomed the newest addition to the Maloney family - Michael Thomas Maloney who weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz, and was born at 4:44 PM.

Doing research really can pay off.  Karen found the Lighthouse Place Premium Outlets in Michigan City, Indiana.   The mall had all the usual stores and one special addition - a Bath & Body Works outlet.  When you find a Bath & Body Works outlet make sure to stock up.  Teresa saved over $115, Karen saved over $150 and I saved $110.

It was a quick one hour drive to the Hampton Inn & Suites Chicago - North Shore/Skokie.  Before checking into the hotel, we grabbed dinner at California Pizza Kitchen at the Westfield Old Orchard Shopping Mall.

Tomorrow we hit The Windy City to check out the sites.