Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

Friday, July 25, 2014

where's the chai?

Whenever I hear someone say "Chi City" or "Chi Town", I think that it's a city filled with the finest chai tea. When in reality Chicago (not pronounced in any way like its herbal counterpart) is a lovely city, but does not have an abundance of chai lattes, to my slight disappointment. I've been there twice now, and have yet to enjoy the tea during my stay. I did have a blast, and consume large amounts of iced coffee, which is an ample substitute for chai lattes.

I flew up this Monday and arrived around 8:30 in the morning to visit one of my closest friend who moved there about three years ago. This was my second trip, so it was more relaxed, since I have already seen all the touristy sights. We headed to the "beach" for the afternoon. I put beach in quotation marks, because in order to have a beach you must have salt water and waves.


The gorgeous waters of Lake Michigan 
We accidentally wandered on to private property, and went in a part of the lake we weren't allowed to. However, we had a blast and died laughing when the poor life guard kept having to tell us what we couldn't do. We clearly weren't natives. 

This swimsuit is my attempt at the one piece trend.
It's sold out but this is a similar one from J.Crew Factory currently on sale
The next day we headed to downtown Chicago. Last time I went I took an absurd amount of pictures, but this time I didn't. I did take a couple, however. We rode the train from Arlington Heights, the suburb where my friend lives, to downtown.  We headed to Michigan Ave. for some serious shopping.
I wore overalls of course. 
We hit Nordstrom and browsed their anniversary sale. Soon, we realized we needed a pick me up. We paused our Nordstrom adventures and headed to Starbucks. I have never waited in that long of line at a Starbucks, but we finally got our caffeine. Rejuvenated, we went back to Nordstrom and shopped our hearts out. 

Next we went to Charming Charlie's where I found the cutest whale earrings. Then we headed to Forever 21, where I found a couple things I like, but ended up not buying any of them. We finally arrived at H&M which is basically the shopping promised land. I bought a skirt and declared my shopping day done. We did go to topshop, but at that point I was too tired to seriously study the racks. We took a cab back to the train station, and headed back to Arlington Heights. A long day downtown can really wear you out. That being said, I do love going to downtown Chicago, because I love how different it is from downtown Houston. It's so interesting to compare them.

The next day we visited a cute little diner in the morning, and baked (surprise, surprise) in the afternoon. I'll be sharing the recipes with you soon. Then we went to dinner at Francesca's Tavola, which was amazing. It was such a nice little restaurant and the food was delicious. 
All dressed up
My outfit: Shirt-Anthropologie, Jeans-Paige,
Sandals-Target
Thursday we headed to downtown Arlington Heights before I left. I bought these two darling necklaces and the cutest headband for my niece at this little shop called Vignettes.

After that we headed to a unique pet store with a clever name. The Corner Barkery had all sorts of fascinating treats, some of which disgusted me, but I found some souvenirs for my four legged friends back here in Texas. Then we stumbled upon the CUTEST bakery, Sweet T's. I could have moved in their. I had to be dragged out. I honestly would have sat there for hours just soaking it all in. They also make killer cinnamon rolls.

Even with two people splitting it, we couldn't
finish it.


My flight Thursday evening ended up being a little delayed, but I got home in time to sleep in my own bed. As much fun as I had in Chicago, I'm so glad to be home.

Theresa