bachelorette party!

I would like to start off by saying these are my sisters and I love them like crazy.

Aren't they beautiful?!  Mandy's on the left, Kelly's on the left.  Here's the thing about Mandy... she's getting married in 3.5 weeks!  So, as custom dictates, we threw her a little bachelorette party.  Since the ladies would be coming from the far corners of the earth, we decided to have the party in one of Mandy's favorite places... Chicago.  Also, we decided not to tell here where it would be.

Special thanks go to Liz and Erin for transporting Mandy to the city and keeping her busy so she wouldn't figure out where she was going until she saw the Chicago skyline and realized they kept taking exits to Chicago.

All seven of us converged downtown Friday night at our hotel.  Thanks to priceline.com, we got a pretty good rate at the historic Palmer House Hotel.  This lobby picture doesn't even begin to do it justice...check out their website for much better views! 

We started things out right by having Chicago-style pizza.  After some arguing, we decided to go with Gino's East.  I remembered it being amazing, but to be honest... it wasn't as good as I remember.  Still great, but not what I remembered.

Saturday morning we hiked down to Kelly's friends' apartment to cook breakfast.  This is the view from their apartment.

A little high up for me, but a lot closer to the ground than their last apartment, which was on the 42nd floor (they now live on the 21st floor).  Major thanks go to Maya, Gundar, and Noah for letting us crash their home for the morning.  You guys are really great, and I'm glad I got to meet you!

After sharing some laughs over you tube videos, we resumed our walking tour, starting in Grant Park and working our way up to Millenium Park, home of the shiny bean.

As we resumed the march toward Navy Pier, we saw these large numbers, and realized it was some kind of large clock/ sundial.  

Here are the other girls on 4, since it was 4 weeks til the wedding.

 We also learned how to breakdance. Let's break it down.  Shall we?

Finally we arrived at Navy Pier... just in time to find a bathroom and then get in line for our architectural boat tour.

 

This is Grant.  He was our tour guide.  Everyone loves a good safety demonstration, so of course I had to take a picture.

And now... some pictures from our tour.  

Since I can't take pictures and notes at the same time, you'll have to go on the tour yourself to learn all kinds of things.  But I recommend it.  I also recommend taking a jacket.

After the boat tour, we forgot to ride the Ferris wheel, because we were focused on getting ourselves to the Cheesecake Factory for some cheesecake.  And it was worth the walk (duh).  We each ordered a piece and then we took bites and passed.  Note: this is a great way to taste a lot of different kinds of cheesecake while only buying (and eating, really) one piece.  I can confirm that I made the best choice.  This was for two reasons:

1) My cheesecake tasted better than everyone else's
2) My cheesecake was bigger than everyone else's.  I had a lot more of my slice left by the time we made the rounds.

I ordered the Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake, for anyone who's wondering.

After we finished up with the cheesecake, we walked to the top of the Magnificent Mile and then headed south.  If you're going to do something do it right!

One of the buildings Grant pointed out on our tour was the Chicago Tribune building.  He said if we got a chance we should walk around it, because it had some interesting bits of rubble built into the walls.

Stones from the White House...

...Vatican...

...Great Pyramids.  You know, the usual.  No big deal.  Also, lots of other rocks, not just these three :)

Since one night of Chicago pizza is never enough, and we were in the neighborhood, we decided to swing by Giordano's for pizza.  We had to wait awhile, but we could order our pizzas ahead so they would be ready shortly after we were seated.  It was chilly outside, but nothing some cuddling and Wanna Buy A Duck can't cure...

We ordered a medium and two smalls.  That's twenty pieces of Chicago-style pizza.  There were 7 of us.  Yes.  Yes we did eat all of it.  Yes, we WERE all in.  Special thanks go out to Erin for throwing down the challenge, Mandy for the inspiring pep talks, Liz, who ate the most pizza (you're my hero), and Jessica, who truly put in a heroic effort.

Bellies full and feet throbbing, we headed back to the hotel for the night.  What happened there is between the 7 of us :)

Before saying good-bye Sunday, we went out for brunch.  We made reservations at Brassier by LM that Maya and Gundar recommended... it did not disappoint! 

LM Benedict was the right thing to chose. Check out those poached eggs...they're like little balls of mozarella.  I didn't even think I liked eggs benedict!

I thought I would take advantage of the great light from the large window we were sitting right next to, and totally ruin an otherwise great picture by being too lazy to get out of my chair and take a picture in the right direction.

But Erin (left) and Jessica look great anyway!

So do Becca (left) and Mandy!  Are they twins, you ask?  No.  If they were, I would have included Becca in the picture of my sisters.  But they do bear a striking resemblance, and the poor use of awesome lighting can further confuse these things.

Ahh..finally I got the lighting right!  Except that this was the first picture I took.  Anyway, I really, really love this picture of Kelly and Liz.

Despite the blisters that 10 miles (not exaggerating) of walking gave me, I had a really great weekend.

Now its time for an informal poll.  What's you're favorite place to get Chicago pizza?