Chicago!

Two weeks back, my best friend and I decided to head to the windy city for a long weekend. Payal and I went to college together and every single year since we've graduated (a loooooong time back!) we try to do a girls' trip to spend some quality time together and catch up. I'd never been to Chicago and since she had a few hours of work there, decided to tag along with her and make a trip out of it. I have another friend from Dubai who is originally from Chicago and she's always raved about the city and how much she loves it but I really didn't know what to expect. On our drive into the city from the airport, I kept marveling about the place and how beautiful it was! It felt like a gorgeous European city as it had so much greenery and was so clean and well maintained but also had all the amazing stores and conveniences of America. I am not too huge of a fan of Miami or LA and I've always found them so overrated, but Chicago is one of those places that isn't very frequented by tourists, but I could imagine to be a really lovely place to live in. As you can tell, I am officially a lover of Chicago! I walked around with my Leica X1 snapping up pictures of the buildings and the architecture, and am posting a few up here for you to see what it's all about. Enjoy!

                                           Look at the gorgeous flowerbed!

This was the view from my hotel room. If you've ever lived in New York, apartments and hotel rooms are literally double the price if they are "park-facing" (Central Park) and really, you pay a crazy amount to see a splotch of green in that vast concrete jungle. In Chicago we were staying at the Fairmont which isn't even one of the top 3 hotels there, and this was the view from our bedroom. Should give you an idea of what the city is like.

I took this picture and immediately thought of my art teacher back in Dubai, Mrs Roy. This was a tiny sculpture just on the side of a building and was so obscure I almost missed it. I know she loved Chicago when she visited too and it's easy to see why. It's a city so rich with art and music and had street performers on practically every block. I have another post on a restaurant there and a tiny bit of shopping that I did (lucked out with something unusually stunning!) which I will post tomorrow. All in all, was such a lovely trip!
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