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We were in Chicago for a week in late August celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary. We had a great time in Chicago and I wanted to add a quick blog entry with some highlights and tips for the posterity.

• Although several friends warned us about the exorbitant parking prices in downtown Chicago, I still cringed with pain every time I had to cough up upwards of 20$ to park the rental car for a few hours. Based on this experience, I suggest you consider one of these options if you visit Chicago:
• • Stay in downtown; even though the hotels are pricey, you will easily make up the difference in parking fees. You will have to figure out the public transportation system but between Metra, CTA and the free downtown trolley, you can pretty much go anywhere you want.
  • Stay near the airport; there is a wide choice of reasonably priced accommodations available there. This option is cheaper than staying in downtown but the trade-off is the 45-60 minute commute to downtown each day on the train. You could also rent a car for the stay, drive to downtown everyday and park it in a cheap garage (the one we used was at the intersection of 8th and State, 10$ for 24 hours) and use the free trolley system to go around downtown.
• Here’s a quick rundown of things to do in Chicago:
• • Museum of Science & Industry: The museum is fantastic! We spent an entire day there but I still could not savor the place completely to my satisfaction. The temporary exhibit “Leonardo Da Vinci: Man Inventor Genius” is simply superb and a once in a life-time event. The 4-million dollar model railroad exhibit is a treat to grownups and kids alike. The coal mine exhibit was exciting and educational. Here’s a list of all the great exhibits at the museum: http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/exhome.html
  • The Field Museum is also a must visit but if I had to do it again, I would skip the much-hyped King Tut special exhibition and the Underground Adventure.
  • One of the many available architecture cruises. I recommend the cruises on Chicago’s First Lady.
  • If you are into people-watching, I highly recommend a day long camp-out at the Navy Pier, especially on a Saturday. I heard the pier is also has the best vantage spots for the Wednesday and Saturday night fireworks. The pier was still bustling with activity even after midnight Saturday when we went for a late night Supernatural cruise on the lake!
  • Go onto the Hancock Tower instead of the Sears Tower. You will have better views at a better price
  • A nice leisurely walk through the various sections of the Millenium Park, one of Chicago’s newest attractions.
  • Do not forget to eat your share of heavenly food - yes, I am talking about Giordano’s Pizza, the best stuffed crust pizza on earth!
• A few things we really wanted to do but could not:
• • A leisurely bike ride on the miles of bike trails along the lake and in the various parks.
  • A fun guided bike tour (I still blame Maanasa for not planning our trip to accommodate The Friendly Neighborhood Tour on the last day of our stay in the Windy City)
  • A geeky Segway Tour of Chicago.
  • Free walking audio tours of the different downtown loops. The geek in me would have been extremely happy with the free downloadable audio tours available here:
  • • Art Loop
    • Landmark Loop
    • Theater Loop
• No blog entry of mine is complete without mentioning a high-tech (aka geeky) gadget…
• • At the da Vinci exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, you could take a self-guided audio tour of the various models and the hands-on activities. Nothing fancy, right? No! The audio devices used for the tour were Motorola RAZR phones combined with a blue-tooth headsets! I thought that was a great way to leverage technology. Now, if they offer visitors to download audio tours onto our personal windows mobile smartphone it would be even more fun. Don’t you think?

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Man offers to take his boss to lunch. Both finish their sumptuous lunch and it was time to pay up.

Man calls the waitress and hands a card. Waitress comes back after a few seconds…

Waitress: Sorry, we don’t accept AmEx Cards here.

Man pulls out his wallet and hands her another card. She comes back in 2 minutes and starts waving the card angrily in his face…

Waitress: We don’t accept LIBRARY CARDS either.