Chicago - Day 1

Saturday, 23 July

0130 - finished packing. Whew!

0420 - up to get out of the house by 440 to get to Amarillo airport.

0500 - Arrived at airport in plenty of time for 515 boarding for 545 flight for DFW (Only other choice was a 4 PM departure getting into Chicago at 9 PM essentially wasting a whole day - we're not masochists. Really) Start reading HPatHBP.

0700 - Smooth connection at DFW - even have time for a bit of breakfast!.

1000 - arrive in Chicago. Go to hotel, and stow bags, but we can't check in 'til 3 PM. On drive in spot lots of likely prospects for future meals :) Talk to concierge about bus routes, various attractions, etc.

1130 - walk to Pizzeria Uno (spied on the way in) for a real Chicago deep dish pizza. I like the deep dish ordinarily, but it seemed as though they wanted to make sure you knew they used real tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, because it seemed as though the tomatoes were left on the unbaked dough for a long time before baking because the crust came out way too soggy. But the local beer was quite good.

1300 - caught the bus to Shedd Aquarium, part of the Museum Complex on a peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan. Bought a City Pass (good for admission to multiple attractions - save money, and avoid all the long lines!) and also a bus pass - no more scrounging for change.

Shedd Aquarium is huge. A lot of it is fairly ordinary fish in tanks type stuff where you see maybe 2 out of 10 of the listed species in any given exhibit. Highlights included:

Penguins - they had an exhibit with maybe 90 Gentoo penguins and 10 Rockhopper penguins. Lots of swimming, preening, chirping, nesting type behavior. The rockhoppers were particularly cute in the water, as they mostly stayed of the surface and keep shaking water off their upward side. When they did dive they really flew - hard to follow with your eyes.

Rays - you actually stood on a glass surface and looked down on about a foot of water with several varieties of rays underneath.

Sharks - A concave window allowed you to look in and up to see about 20 different varieties of sharks swim by.

There was also a pretty neat exhibit about the rise and fall of the Amazon every year (about 30 vertical feet) and how the river people had adapted to it, but that flood control for the region was threatening various species and the Natives way of life to make room for more cattle grazing lands.

1730 - Back to hotel. Decisions, decisions for dinner. Ultimately decided on Greektown, and the first restaurant we came to was called Greek Islands. We ordered a set menu.
Starters included:
Taramosalata - Considered Greek caviar, this is a blend of cod roe with potatoes, onions, & olive oil Other than salty, kind of bland. Tasted OK as a spread on the wonderful bread.
and
Saganaki - The finest imported Greek cheese is Flambéd tableside Ooh!!! This was wonderful!

The salad was nothing to write home about.

The entree was a platter with:
Gyros
Leg of Lamb
Moussaka (eggplant casserole)
Dolmades (Grape leaf wrapped around rice & meat mix)
Meatball
It was all wonderful!

Dessert was a bit of disappointment, though.
We were supposed to get:
Baklava, which was chewy, and deanse instead of light and flaky.
Galaktoburiko - candied orange & lemon peel which we didn't get :(
Karidopita - which was described as a spice cake with cinnamon & walnuts but wound up being a rather tasteless custard type thing.

But by then we were too stuffed to care all that much. Overall, it was really a wonderful meal, and we would definitely go back again, even if we did walk around & go somewhere else for dessert...

2230 - Back to the hotel, and it didn't take long for us to be sawing some serious logs - we were exhausted after our long day!