Farewell in Chicago

Chicago is a place I’ve been time and again and it never gets old, except I mainly stroll down the Magnificent Mile almost every single time I go there, so one might say I never really experienced Chicago to it’s fullest. We came together as a group of four girls, my sister Gabi who was leaving to go back to Brazil, my BFF Kris and our Polish friend Ewelina who was also celebrating her B-Day and booked a room in Chi-town, this time around though we decided to do sight seeing (if you can call it that) and touristic-y things. Kris has done all the touristic things before and was basically our tour guide, so she suggested we rented bikes to ride around town. I absolutely LOVED doing that and regret all the times I didn’t.

For 7 bucks we get to ride those awesome bikes for 24 hours with short interval periods of 30 min. in which we need to find a station to “park” the bikes and register we’re still around. As amazing as it sounds for such a big city like Chicago, they are really bike friendly, whether  you ride on the street by the cars (not all streets have a bike lane) or on the somewhat crowded sidewalks with people walking, nobody seemed to mind the traffic and we had a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again!

First stop: Millennium Park (located on Michigan Street but going opposite to the Magnificent Mile). You can find a Divvy Bike Station right across the street from the park.

I guess what people like to do here is to take pics with their images mirroring on the bean, we took a million pics of this, and pretty sure you would be pretty bored to go through them, so here’s one of Ewelina and Kris “trying hard” to get a cool shot 😉 hehehehe

To start our celebratory weekend right we had Sangrias and Mojitos along with a fattening burger at a sweet cafe in the park. And this was our view for lunch!

After lunch we decide to ride bikes around town. This is something I was looking forward to do it, and since Kris has done it many times she became our sort of guide. There was a bike station right across the street and off we went to our bike ride. For more info on the bike rentals, such as routes and rates visit divvybikes.com

I loved riding by the canal over looking all the fancy buildings and million dollar big ass condos!

My Outfit: F21 “Pardon my French” sweater; Gold Sign premium Jeans; Prada boots; Prada bag; Tom Ford sunnies; Stella and Dot bracelets and Rachel Roy earrings 😉 

The ride through town by the gardens and parks was my favorite, it felt to me just like the Jardins neighborhood from my native Sao Paulo, you know those little well taken care off streets with flowers and beautiful people just off Av. Paulista….total deja vu.

I’m so very sorry to not have captured a single shot of the Navy Pier, it was a Saturday and the city was so busy. We couldn’t find a parking space there and had to leave to put our bikes away, turns out we decided to take a break and never returned to the pier…

To take a break from biking we went shopping and to our hubbies joy we didn’t have much luck in that department. I particularly couldn’t find anything exciting and the trip was already costing more than I usually spend there, so we didn’t buy anything just had some fun! (and sadly Kris lost her cute F21 camo jacket, and left her shoes at the hotel…as she herself puts, she left with less than what she came with! But that’s our typical Kris, so not much surprise for us hehehehe, we often laugh because she doesn’t drink and we all like a little something something but she’s the only one who always either falls, loses her stuff and/or breaks things! WE LOVE YOU AMIGA!!!!

But, there’s more to our adventure! Hehehe after naps and showers we got ready for a night out and guess what took us to the restaurants?! Our Bikes!!!!! Yes, we rode at night in heels and fur neck pieces, makeup and hair do’s! LOOOOOOOOVEEEE, everyone should most definitely have one of these experiences 😉

Night Outfit: All I did was add a leather jacket, this is a nude peplum one from Zara along with my H&M fur neck piece, I also changed my riding boots for my heel ones also from H&M. (Tip for packing smart: if it’s just an overnight deal choose a pair of pants that you can transition easily from day to night and that can be dressed up or down accordingly).

Beatrix was our first stop, a sort of trendy spot in town but really lacked a full menu. The choices were a bit disappointing, at least for us. Very farm friendly but we weren’t looking for past with pouched eggs 🙁 the atmosphere in the other hand was great, very hip and open to the street, think Greenwich Village in NYC.

So we ended up at another trendy restaurant, the italiano RPM, with cute waiting staff and delish gourmet dishes, mind you they are really tiny and pricey but at 11pm let’s just say we weren’t really that hungry anymore. It’s a definite worth if you are looking for great food with in a casual but chic environment and not starving!

We were too exhausted to party, and had to get up early to take Gabi to the airport so we just went to bed. After Gabi left we headed home to Indy but I’m counting the days to have another weekend like that one, so little time and so much to experience….I guess no matter how many times you’ve been to a place like Chicago, there’s always something fun and interesting to do 😉

Happy week my friends.

Beijos,