I have a secret.  

I've been cheating on Boston with another city.  And that city is bigger, cleaner, prettier, and better run than Boston.  The people are nicer too.  I even like their baseball team.  

The only problem is that it's halfway across the country.  In Illinois. Yup, that's right.. we've been in.. 

CHICAGO!

I've always loved Chicago, for reasons I was never really able to put into words.  Sure I like New York, but that's more because that's where NBC and all my favorite celebrities are.  The actual city? Not so much.  I also love Boston, but that's because it's close to family, home to my Red Sox, and where I went to college.  But in my mind, I always knew if I could magically wake up and choose a different life, it would be centered around Chicago.  

I'd never actually move there, because I like being close to my people too much, so it's a non issue for me.  But in another life, where my people were all out there too?  I could definitely see myself living there, wearing Cubs gear, working for Milliman, and eating hot dogs with ketchup (okay even then you aren't going to get me to give up my ketchup!).

So since I'm not going to move there any time soon, I decided to do the next best thing - visit and see if I could make Tom fall in love with it too.  He'd never been before, so I was able to introduce him to all my favorite spots, and explore a few new places with him by my side too.

We'd been talking about going for a while, and then at some point we decided we should go over Labor day, and celebrate our first wedding anniversary while we were at it.   I don't know how often we'll be able to get away for our anniversary, so we figured we'd do it while we could, and take some time to celebrate the milestone of making it a year!

So last Saturday, we headed off on our first vacation from our new house, and took off towards the windy city. 

We stayed through Tuesday, and because I planned the trip, we did way too much, and saw enough that I'll be recapping this trip through Christmas probably.  But I think by the end of it, Tom was as in love with the city as I am, and we had so much fun.  

Before we left, we made sure to stop by and say hi to the bean.  Technically called Cloud Gate, I've always felt this statue would be a little more at home in Boston than Chicago.  Except of course it's in Chicago, because they have some of the coolest statues and fountains I've ever seen.  Case in point, my favorite fountain(s) in Chicago are LED brick towers that illustrate different faces spitting water at people.  

See you next time, Chicago! 

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