But, gee, it was really boring after the first day!! I think we could have done with one day instead of three *.*
Monday, 21 Nov 2011
We couldn't check in early so we headed to the Harley-Davidson Museum!
Entry was $16 but students get a $4 discount so Sito flashed his student card :) But we spent the $4 on an audio guide, which wasn't terribly useful.. They have free lockers so we could leave bags and coats at the lobby - convenient service.
There's an area full of bikes for visitors to sit on. It's really cool! Check out my husband on a Harley-Davidson!
I picked a 小绵羊 - MUCH easier to get on and off...
We looked through the history of the company. This shows the minutes of the first meeting of the company - got template! (Oops, occupational hazard..)
They also have some interesting advertisements. Look at this - first you date comfortably, then you have a kid and still travel comfortably! (Occupational hazard again? :p)
But the most interesting thing we found was that back then, it was a culture of "everyone has it or is doing it, so should I".
We thought the company flourished through the wars by supplying many of the vehicles. I think this particular model was never used but I thought it was cool :)
Then there were various races - curved slopes, uphill etc. And the racers had to wear shoes with iron soles because they would drag the feet as they turned.
See, Sito became a racer for 10 seconds :p
I like the gas tanks very much. So pretty :)
This customised bike is very pretty too!
Oh, there was a kids' area with leather caps and jackets. Sito couldn't fit into a jacket.
I could! But the jacket was a bit too short :p
There are a few more games and hands-on areas, like in the engine room and test lab area where we customised our own bikes and emailed the picture to ourselves :)
And we went to this restoration area. Outside the gates was this sign :p
This is totally random - one of the two water towers on the grounds was very festive :)
We finally checked into Hampton Inn and Suites. The room was spacious, and we found that they offered hot breakfast, all for $96 a night! Quite happy with this choice. If only they had a fridge in the room..
Anyway, dinner was at the Old German Beer Hall, where Sito had a beer and we shared a giant pretzel and a bratwurst platter. The burtwursts were just boiled; might have been yummier with a bit of browning on the grill...
The pretzel was amazing with cheese topping. And it was huge! I was holding one of the small holes - you know, a pretzel has two small holes and one big one right? Yep, huge pretzel.. Good ending to a good day..
Tuesday, 22 Nov 2011
No photos to show today - we were supposed to go to the Discovery World but figured that we didn't need to spend $16.95 for a science museum. Didn't help that we saw only school kids there hoho!
The Milwaukee Art Museum is just next door but we are not the artsy kind, and we could get into Chicago museums on museum free days so we decided to walk through the city instead.
The day before, we already experienced a bit of the city since our hotel was downtown in West Town. At 8 pm, we met just one single person on the streets. And he said hi and asked us for money *.* We were hoping that it might be better in the day today - more people, more 人气...
And we were sorely disappointed.
We went to the Historic Third Ward - nice buildings, nice streets, nice shops, but there was hardly anyone around. We eventually got to the Milwaukee Public Market - finally, some people! But it was not very big and we left soon...
Then it was East Town. There were more people there but not a lot of things to do. We had chilli at Real Chili - it was quite good except that I regretted going for all beans instead of a mix of beans and spaghetti..
So in lieu of any other thing to do and see, we popped into the shopping centre across from our hotel. And we bought socks for Sito :p I also got a couple of children's books for upcoming birthdays among the kids here. Then we bought a grape Icee - omg, Icee! - and went back to the hotel to watch TV *.*
Dinner was after many episodes of Friends, at the food court in the shopping centre across from us. Lazy to go any further :p Strangely, "Cajun Grill" serves Chinese food... Anyway, it wasn't too bad - we do like angmoh Chinese food haha!
We soon retreated back to the warmth of the hotel. And we decided that we would go back to Evanston the next morning instead of later as planned.
Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011
What a good feeling to be back in Chicago! The many tall buildings, the many people on the streets, the sounds of the cars. Yes, I'm a city girl :)
Sito brought me to the Chicago French Market where he went for dinner often during his internship. It was so nice and so much better than the Milwaukee Public Market! We will go there again :)
So now we're happily home in Evanston. Got ice cream on the way home from the train station. Got our mail and parcel before the lobby closed for the Thanksgiving holidays.
Really, after this trip, we truly appreciate our little town and Chicago! We'll enjoy this place before heading back to an even better city, Singapore!
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