Time to recap our touristy day in the city. I can’t remember the last time I played tourist in Chicago! It’s been YEARS.

I was undecided about going with Dunja and fam to the city until late the night before. Going to the city daily for work feels like a punishment and part of my brain is like “why would I do that on purpose?” But thankfully, the other part of my brain was like “duh, you’re having such a wonderful time with them, and you will in the city, too!” And I did!

I especially appreciate the grace Dunja and Christian gave me in taking time to decide. And it made me feel really good when they said they were glad I came. Aww. I was too We had a lot of fun!

Okay, moving on!

Wednesday, August 20th

As I mentioned in my previous post, we decided to match. I love matching! We got a few comments on our outfits during the day.

I even wore my hair curly like Clarissa (and had matching glasses for us and wore similar shoes and jewelry)! She was pretty excited when she noticed in the morning (and pulled it half back later on in the day to match even more—love it!).

No morning is complete without Ned cuddles!

We took the 8:30 train to the city, with a stop at Starbucks on the way.

It was their first time riding on a commuter train like this.

Then got to experience someone clipping their nails on the train (ew) and… a bird? For real, it sounded like someone brought their bird on the train. So… interesting.

I realized on the way to the train station that I forgot to eat breakfast so our first stop in the city was Do-Rite Donuts in the Sears Tower for a vegan donut. At first I didn’t see the flavor I usually get (chocolate) and was going to pick a different one, then they bought out a fresh batch! We got a few. So good!

Our plan was to meander downtown a bit and see some major sites, before our boat tour at 2:00.

They were very excited to see the L train go by in the loop. It was cute! I’m generally annoyed by how loud and alarming the L is and try to avoid walking by it, but seeing them awed by it made it feel charming. In that moment. (I’m not a city girlie.)

I know enough about Chicago architecture to point out what is significant but then I have to check stats. Like, the Rookery. It’s considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. I had to look that up but when I did I saw you could go into the lobby, which was renovated by Frank Lloyd Wright.

And it’s on LaSalle St, near the Board of Trade Building. I was telling them how that streetscape is well known in Chicago and featured in lots of movies. Then we saw someone was taking their wedding photos there, so that kind of cemented my point LOL. Not that anyone didn’t believe me. But you know. I know some stuff.

We toured my office,

which has amazing city views.

We talked to a lot of my coworkers. They all kept saying how it was a great day to be in the city because the weather was so pleasant. It was. It wasn’t miserable at all. We were able to walk around all day and not be drenched in sweat or extremely uncomfortable. Amazing, truly, for late August!

So when we were in Iowa, and I was teaching Dunja and fam about “never trust a fart,” I asked my snis and family what other phrases we should see if they know. And my snis asked if they’ve heard how people sarcastically say “living the dream” when someone asks how you’re doing, like at work.

I kid you not, that was the first thing we heard someone say at my office! We walked by someone’s desk as they were just getting on a call and they told the other person they were “living the [insert company name] dream.” Ha. Dunja and fam heard it several times, along with “this is where the magic happens.” I found this particularly funny. And when I went back to work this week Dunja said something to me about making the magic happen ha ha ha ha ha. This week wasn’t particularly magical. Except for the nice weather continuing. Maybe next week will be.

We walked by more touristy things after! The Art Institute,

Crown Fountain,

the “Bean.”

We walked over the BP Pedestrian Bridge (that’s where we are in the matching pic at the top), and a bit into Millennium Park, then we started to get hangry (ha, Steven taught them that word Saturday) and got lunch at Jimmy John’s in the Aon Center.

My goodness. I almost forgot to mention A FEW THINGS. (Mostly insider joke stuff I want to document and you can skip to the photo below if you don’t want to read how silly we are.)

The previous day, I had shown them the quaso reel by princesshoneybelle, and we could not stop saying “quaso” in that funny voice, over and over. It really escalated on our walk out of the park to lunch.

The night before we’d also talked about how some pilots meow on the 121.5 frequency, which they had read about on my blog. At dinner that night we started meowing “What Was I Made For?’ and one of the kids asked why people meow on 121.5 and the other kid said “because meow” then Clarissa was laughing so hard she was crying (I love that they have this sibling connection. This is how I get with my snis and it’s so much fun.)… getting really in the weeds here, just to tell you we were still meowing that the next day. (Nicholas really wanted to tune into 121.5 when we flew to listen for meowing but it didn’t make sense to change frequencies. Next time. Meow!)

And while in Iowa, we’d starting saying “Nein heißt Nein” (no means no), so we kept saying THAT on repeat. And the occasional Ja heißt Ja.

AND, also, while in Iowa, I had told them about this time Steven said my mani was “interesting” then laughed, so now anytime someone said “interesting,” someone else would almost always go “ha ha.”

Okay now that I think about it, it was mostly Nicholas, Clarissa, and me saying these things over and over, and the parents not so much. I bet they felt like they were in the city with three children. Well, they basically were. I like to have fun.

After Jimmy John’s we stopped at Crumbl Cookies, then lined up for our boat tour.

The Chicago Architecture Center boat tour is top notch. I always recommend it to people going to the city, and have done it three times and found it super interesting (ha ha) each time.

It’s an hour and a half long and the docents do such a great job of keeping it engaging. I hadn’t done it since the late aughts and some of the buildings are new since then so I heard some new facts.

We all really enjoyed it and had fun talking about our favorite buildings and the favorite facts we learned.

After the tour we decided to nix going to Navy Pier, and I randomly remembered the Starbucks Chicago Roastery exists. I haven’t been there before, and we decided to go!

We had fun checking out all the floors. We all got drinks and snacks and had them on the rooftop patio. I tried this ube coconut drink that was really good!

At the end of our time at Starbucks, Clarissa was starting to think about going home in a few days and feeling sad. I totally get that! I find myself doing that during trips too, thinking “we only have x amount of time left then when will I see them?” It’s hard not to do.

The only cure is to plan something else to look forward to, which we are hoping to do and see them next summer!

And to get it out of your mind so it doesn’t consume you and affect the time you have left too much. To try to be in the moment. Easier said than done.

All that said, the women were having some feelings (LOL) so we did a group hug, and I reminded Clarissa it’s okay to have big feelings and express them!

We stopped in this funny shop on the way back toward the train, where there were Labubus and Labubu-adjacent toys. Dunja kept saying “I don’t get it!” And I kept saying “it’s not for us to get.” Ha ha. Every generation has their thing!

We had a few other things we wanted to do before we rode the train back home! Christian wanted to see the Chicago theater,

and they wanted to ride the L!

Have you ever seen anyone so excited to ride the L? Adorable.

I told my coworkers we took them on the L and they asked me which line. When I said purple they were like “that’s not the L.” Ha. No, it’s not. But I am not taking my guests on a shady L line! And they wanted to ride it where it’s elevated.

The L dropped us at a Arby’s! Coincidence?! I think not! And! We got fresh fries!

They liked them!

After that we hung out at the train station then got on the 7:32 train home.

We decided to play games and were so freaking rowdy. It was a riot. We were shouting and laughing and crying. I bet the other guests in the car LOVED us. Especially the shouting in German. Ha ha ha.

We were so slap happy by the time we got to the car! So much that I told Christian the wrong road to take home and we all could not stop laughing. It was so fun.

When we got home everyone had to pee so bad but… we had to stop for Ned cuddles first!!!!

Then we caught Steven up a bit on our day and he told us about his. He had worked all day then gone to an appointment then come home and realized some bats took up residence on our attic vent. So he spent a lot of the evening trying to get them to leave with no success (they were gone by Saturday and we put mesh over the vent).

My goodness. We had a lot of house issues while they were there. On Tuesday the garage door stopped closing. On Wednesday the bats showed up. On Thursday a bunch of ants showed up, and a light went out. Sigh. I appreciate Steven taking care of all these things.

All that said, we hung out for a bit cause we had all missed Steven (especially Nicholas!), and we were happy we all got to spend the next day together!