Chicago

A Chi-town Adventure

The Details

5/20/16 - 5/22/16

Chicago was a relatively short trip (3 days). Realistically, we only went there for 2 reasons: six flags and Chance the Rapper (more on these shortly). The flights from Austin to Chicago are also extremely cheap through Southwest - about $89 per way. The flight is about 2 hrs long, so it isn't too bad. Once we arrived in Chi-town, we rented a car since our Airbnb was outside of the city, and we knew we wanted to drive to Six Flags Great America, which is about 45 min north of Chicago. (Random - we have a goal of visiting every Six Flags in America and every Disneyland in the world. lol) Our itinerary went something like this:

• Day 1: Six Flags Great America

• Day 2: Chance Magnificent Coloring World & Sightseeing

• Day 3: Back home

On the first day, Six Flags took up the majority of our day, so we weren't able to do much exploring in Chicago. Great America is definitely in our top 3 in the franchise that we’ve visited so far .

On day 2 of our trip, that is when were were fully able to explore the city. One of the highlights of our trip was Chance's Magnificent Coloring World. That link gives a pretty detailed analyst on the whole event, but essentially it was an adult fun-house, listening party type of event that Chance put on to celebrate the release of his Mixtape - Coloring Book. We were pretty upset that Chance didn't show up, however it was still pretty dope. When Chance first announced a "secret event", we kind of figured it was going to be a performance of some sort so we bought tickets immediately. However, Lil Chano from 79th was nowhere to be found. Basically, you showed up at this secret location that was announced the day of the event (turns out to be a school), you wait in line, load up into some school buses and you get taken to the back of some abandoned building. The whole situation sounds sketchy, and it absolutely was, but it turned out to be real fun.

After the Chance party/plaything, we were able to act like tourist in the Chi. While we rented a car this trip, next time we wouldn’t mind opting for riding the metro around. Public transportation is a lot more efficient. While there we hit LakeShore where "girls go all crazy" (Shoutout Kanye), went to the Bean, Willis Tower & Skydeck, Millennium Park, and ate the best deep-dish pizza i've ever had. Seriously, Malnati's Pizzeria can take all our money! There are a a ton of locations, and ton of decent deep-dish pizza restaurants that have great reviews, so you can't go wrong wherever you go. Make sure to also hit up Glazed & Infused for some bomb donuts (maple bacon #yum).

If we had a little bit more time in Chicago, we would definitely go to Navy Pier (during the summer) and go to a baseball game, but there’s always next time.

Our Airbnb: Historic Pullman Artist Flat - Pullman, Chicago, Illinois

The Airbnb that we stayed in was located in the Pullman District of Chicago - which was also declared by Obama as a National Monument in 2015. The community was originally built as an industrial community for workers that worked in the Pullman Factory. In fact, many of the homes still include the original architecture from the 1800s, without many modifications being made.

Also, in Pullman, at the time of our visit, there were around a dozen monuments of historic figures placed randomly through out the city by an unknown artist, including this masterpiece here located at 111th & Cottage Grove Ave:

Honestly, we think our Airbnb host, JB, was the one responsible for these (just a guess of course 😅). Many of his contemporary art can be found displayed throughout the rental - so cool. From the outside, his apartment looks like any of the other 1800 styled flat row homes in the neighborhood. On the inside, however, this Airbnb was an art studio full of small trinkets, contemporary art, and so many other things we weren’t able to fully appreciate.

We would undoubtably stay here again. From the uniqueness of the stay, to the history and quietness of the community, as well as a super helpful host…all are reasons we would definitely recommend this place and stay here again.