The Christmas Spirit

As many of you know, as an early Christmas present, my in-laws paid our way on an antique rail car made in the 50s to Chicago and back on Saturday. Being that I am sick and Matt had thrown out his back the day before, we bundled up, made the best of it and had a great time in the windy city.

The train ride was not exactly what we had envisioned, however, we had first class treatment. There were only 44 seats in the rail car, which meant for a very comfortable ride (there were footrests and enough head room to stand at your seat!) but the car didn't look very old at all. Our train boarded at 4am, so Matt and I did our best to get some additional shut eye before the sun rose. At 6:30am, the volunteer staff served a "continental breakfast." So, I'm thinking bagels and cereal... Oh no! We were served what seemed like 14 courses from hard boiled eggs and little smokies, to yogurt and string cheese! It certainly was a pleasant start to our day... We arrived in Chicago at about 10:30am, I think, and decided to check out the shopping that was available. Without having done much pre-planning, the best we could figure was to head to the Magnificent Mile. It felt like quite a long walk in the bitter cold, so we pushed through the big revolving doors of the first store of interest we saw! This brought us to Nordstrom's. The best way to describe it is by a mini-mall. It was 4 floors, however, most of the stores are also found in STL. It is the location of the Lego store, though! Matt and I had a great time taking in all that has changed since we were Lego consumers... I didn't realize it at the time, but Santa is kinda obstructed in my picture of the Lego version of Santa and one of his reindeer (I don't recall a red nose!).

After we had thawed a bit, we headed back out in search of some different stores... Unfortunately, we didn't have much success. I guess that STL has come a long way, which is certainly a good thing. We didn't find FAO Schwartz or West Elm, unfortunately, but in our ridiculous attempt to find lunch, we did find the Weber Grill restaurant. It was perfect, short wait (hard to find in downtown Chicago around Christmas) and good food. The cook on grills the size of my kitchen table!

After the late lunch, we ventured towards the Sears Tower. On the way we passed by Marshall Field's with their amazing holiday displays and lots of street performers (the puppet theater was the best). When we got to the tower, the visibility was only 5, so we didn't get the best view, but it was cool to learn about the history of the building as well as see all the lights down below.

Afterwards, we had some time to kill before our train left, so we spent it in the Union Station bar... I know, but given the circumstances, we were lucky to have made it that long!

Our return trip turned out to be rather eventful, though. First a little background. Originally, we were supposed to hitch onto another train leaving later and returning earlier. This was switched to allow more time in Chicago. Well, the train that was supposed to leave at 5:15 for STL was actually stalled on the tracks about 10 minutes from Union Station. It had been there for over 2 hours. Obviously, there was no way to go around the other train, so we sat there while the "Canadians" (don't know if that is a company name or heritage) fixed the other train. The whole ordeal cost us about an hour and a half. So, we actually arrived in STL at 1:30am rather than the planned 12am. Matt and I did decide that luxury train car is the way to travel, though! We hope to make more trips like this in the future...