Birthday Weekend in Chicago

Adrienne's birthday is exactly one week after mine, and we have celebrated every single birthday of our twenties together so it was only fitting that we close them out together. For many years we have shared a joint birthday party, and after we graduated college, she has always traveled to Atlanta for the celebration. She has also visited one or two other times throughout the year, every year, so needless to say - I was looong overdue to visit her in Chicago. I mentioned it to her a while back in the fall, and when I got a fare discount email from Delta on the same day I got a winter coat sale email from Bloomingdale's, I took it as a sign from the email sale gods that I must book a trip to Chicago. So I did :)

I got in town late on the Thursday after my birthday, and we stayed up talking until the wee hours of the night morning. I had already planned out all of my PTO days for the entire year, so to avoid having to use vacation days, I worked from my company's Chicago office on Friday and the following Monday. It worked out perfectly and I definitely plan on doing it again. I got there just in time, too - it snowed overnight! It was so pretty Friday morning.

I even took the train into work like a local. Compared to my daily 20-30 minute commute, riding the train to work was a dream. I loved it.

awesome view on my way to work

After work that night we had dinner and a few beers at Hopleaf in Uptown. Such a cool place and an overwhelming amount of beers to choose from. That last one required two hands to drink!

We spent the next day walking around Andersonville and Old Town to do some shopping and get our nails done. I was extremely skeptical about getting a pedicure and then putting on my two pairs of socks and boots. How crazy is this - they douse your feet in oil, wrap them up in sandwich baggies, and then you put on socks and boots, and it doesn't smudge at all!! So fascinating, and I wish they would do that all the time so I don't ever ruin my nails :)  I'm sure the lady thought I was nuts for taking a picture of this, but I was so fascinated.

Saturday night I got to meet some of Adrienne's friends, and we all had such a good time together. We started the birthday celebration at Violet Hour in Wicker Park. It was a really cool speak easy with an amazing drink menu. Though it was rather well hidden - this was the entrance which didn't have a sign for me to take a picture of, so this was the best I could do!

It was also a good place for everyone to hang out while we waited for dinner at Big Star, which was just across the street but had an insane line - nearly 2 hours! We spent the rest of the evening at Piece and enjoyed their live band karaoke. We made a pit stop at Ollie's on our way home - a total dive bar that was closing for the night but Adrienne convinced them to let us in for her birthday :)

I had to have Chicago-style pizza, so for lunch on Sunday we went to Lou Malnati's. Loved it! I thought it was even better than Giordano's, which I had last time I was up there.

That night we went to see A Chicago Revue at The Second City. We had front row seats and it was such a hilarious show! I was glad we went towards the end of my trip, since Adrienne had taken me all over Chicago and gave me some background info, I was able to follow most of the jokes. I saved my program so that hopefully I can look back in 10 years and say I saw someone famous from way back when ;)

Adrienne, thanks again for such an amazing weekend!! Love you and can't wait to come visit you again soon!