The Windy City Blew us Away!

When we started the road trip, we decided to spend 3 nights in 2 cities: New Orleans and Chicago. Well New Orleans did not disappoint, and neither did Chi Town.  We had an absolute blast! On the 2nd day, we started it off with some great breakfast at Pancakes Eggsetera.  I got cinnamon raisin french toast and Kristal got banana nut pancakes which were vanilla and very sweet.  For only $7/each we got so much food and everything was delicious! Afterward, we hit up Michigan street, which is apparently where everything in downtown Chicago is.  We wanted to take a architecture boat tour, but they were all sold out for the day when we got there. We opted for a walking tour that showed the chronology of architecture in Chicago.  It went from a restaurant from the late 1800's (post the great fire) and ended with the Trump Tower that just went up last year.  Kristal also hit up the Art Institute to see the Impressionist and American exhibits, while I decided to go to the public library, which was huge and really cool looking from the outside.  It had a giant sculpture of an eyeball outside, which is apparently a huge photo-opp in the city.

After the afternoon activities, we met with one of Kristal's old high school friends and went to Giordano's for their famous stuffed pizza.  They say the small feeds one to two, but the 3 of us were barely able to finish it off. The pizza was stuffed with Canadian Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms, and was reallllllly good.  After that, we went to the Bean, which apparently is one of Chicago's most famous landmarks. Its basically a giantic piece of reflective metal in the shape of a bean. Its was really cool to look up from the inside.  Lastly, we went to the John Hancock building to get drinks on the 96th floor and see the Chicago skyline. The drink lounge had a sub par view but Kristal got some photos of the view in the girls bathroom which Yelp correctly said was the best view in the room.

Today, we decided to go to one of the most famous places in all of the sports world: Wrigley Field. When we woke up, we found out that we would be seeing history, as Lou Pinella announced that he would retire after the game for family reasons.  Upon arrival, we decided on a whim to go to a sandwich place called Lucky's.  Upon arrival, we noticed that Man vs. Food was shot there, where the guy ate 3 double stuffed sandwiches. This might not sound like much, but consider that the sandwich has the meat, fries, tomatoes, and slaw, all stuffed into a 2 pieces of bread. It was artery clogging deliciousness.  The game was alot of fun, with a ton of scoring. Braves rookie sensation Jason Heyward did not disappoint, belting two home runs and led the Braves to a 16-5 win.  After the game, we went to the Ukrainian village, but there wasn't a whole lot to see outside of some cool homes and churches.  We decided to head home, and head to a place that never disappoints: Buffalo Wild Wings. I decided to up the spicy level and get Spicy Garlic, which was a big mistake! I'm definitely going to stick to Honey BBQ from now on.  After some trivia, we played our new favorite arcade game: Big Buck Hunter. I got a few game records in our 2nd round, and fell just short of my goal of tying or beating the bulls score of 41 (I got 39).

Well that's it for Chi Town. Tomorrow we head out to Denver, with a pit stop probably in Nebraska along the way.  Just 5 more days left on the trip!  Thanks for reading.

The Worlds of New York City

I just realized I never elaborated on Pop Tart World! We decided to spend our one full day in NYC at the brand new Pop Tart World! After a little trouble finding it, since none of the articles gave a specific address other than "Times Square", we saw the multicolored door full of Pop Tarts leading the way to the Pop Tart mecca.

Now, I'm a fan of Pop Tarts after growing up eating them for breakfast, but I'm no where near the fandom that was crying out for this world to exist. Was anyone really? Inside you can make a box of your favorite assorted flavors, customize a t-shirt, and enjoy a slew of Pop Tart infused junk food. KT and I were going to get a box to take home, but they didn't have any new or unusual flavors. It was all the flavors you could find in the store, you just could mix & match them in one box for your conveience. Well, at $1 per Pop Tart, we decided to skip it.

We did order from the Pop Tart bakery where they had a surprising big menu full of baked goods, ice cream sundaes, and somewhat real food with a Pop Tart twist to choose from. We both got a piece of Pop Tart Sushi, since that got the most press from the opening. It was definitely interesting. Consisting of mashed up raspberry Pop Tarts wrapped in a thin slice of Fruit Roll Up, it was sweet, but not as mushy in consistency as expected. At only $0.75 per piece, you gotta try it to get the full Pop Tart World experience. I also got the Mocha Fudge Brownie, which was like a normal Mocha Fudge Brownie, but with bits of Chocolate Fudge Pop Tart crumbled throughout. It was a rich and delicious brownie, but not nearly as Pop Tart infused as I was expecting. KT got a Smores Stick - 3 marshmellows dipped in chocolate with Smores Pop Tart crumpled on top. I'm not a marshmellow fan so I didn't try any, but KT seemed to enjoy it. This was maybe the first time I've ever seen him not finish a desert because it was too rich. So compliments to Pop Tart for using quality chocolate and good sugary marshmellows.

After Pop Tart World, my twitter friend recommended we check out Nintendo World. While Pop Tart World has been all over the press, I had never heard of Nintendo World even though it just opened in May. It was filled with Nintendo merch that if I had the money/space, I would have bought so much! Unforetunately, they also didn't have a lot of sizes since it was a Monday and I'm sure they had a busy weekend. KT bought a shirt for himself and I settled on just taking photos. We also got to play various games at all the stations and see some classic Nintendo products in their display cases. This was definitely an NYC highlight for me!

After all the worlds fun, we went to meet up with my high school friend Taryn to check out her neighborhood. We walked around Washington Heights and the neighboring park, but it soon started to rain so we caught the train back to Brooklyn to grab a delicious Indian dinner with KT's parents. Once again, ethnic food was soooooo good after the long streak of American food all the time throughout the South.

I've uploaded photos from the trip, so be sure to check out facebook to get a visual for all these great places. Stay tuned for more on Philly and now Chicago!