While in Chicago I stayed at The Palmer House Hilton. I was able to snag one hell of a deal at just $89 a night for a double room.

The hotel and our room were amazing! The lobby was beautiful. It had a really classy and elegant feel to it. The room was awesome too. I loved the color scheme and how large the room felt. A friend had a single room and ours was bigger by far.

The green has actually inspired me too add that as a pop of color when I redecorate my own room. Along with the room I fell in love with the carpet they had in the hallway.

I’ve been on a peacock kick as of late and this had my attention every time I left the room. Along with the peacocks in the room there were the Peacock Doors, originally designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Amazing, aren’t they? You should see them in person. I believe they are worth over $1 million dollars.

All in all I feel I really got my money’s worth. The room was very roomy and comfy. The staff was helpful and friendly and the atmosphere was very relaxed and calm. The location was perfect as well. We could walk to Millennium Park, The Chicago Theatre and other must see landmarks plus the hotel is close to the subway (metro? whatever they call it in Chicago).

If you find yourself in Chicago and can snag a deal for The Palmer House Hilton I recommend doing so! While I’m not 100% sold that I would’ve paid full price for the room, I’d stay again if I could find another deal in a heartbeat.

While in Chicago I was able to earn 6 new Foursquare badges! It actually made the trip even more fun by trying to earn various badges by wandering around the city. Here’s a little break down of the badges that I earned while on vacation.

On Location: This is a special Chicago only badge that you can earn by visiting places in Chicago that were featured in different movies. You have to follow Explore Chicago to be able to earn the badge. I earned this badge on my last day in Chicago at the Lincoln Park Zoo!

Photogenic: You earn this badge by checking into 3 places that feature photobooths. This was a surprise as I didn’t expect to unlock this badge while checking out Wrigley Field.

Historian: This is another special badge that’s offered by The History Channel. You need to just visit 2 locations that they’ve tagged. I earned this badge by visiting The Field Museum & Soldiers Field. Wrigley Field was on the list as well but I had already earned the badge by then. I do think they should up it to 5 checkins.

Overshare: I wasn’t surprised to earn this badge as I was checking in all over the place! You earn this badge by doing 10+ checkins in 12 hours. I received this badge when I went out to dinner Saturday night at Ada’s Famous Deli.

Superstar: A simple badge to earn by checking into 50 different venues. I received this badge when I checked in at Henry’s Hot Dogs.

I’m on a boat!: I think you can figure this one out. I checked in at Shoreline Sightseeing and earned this badge while doing a boat tour of Chicago.

I think Foursquare has added a new layer to vacations. They were fun to begin with of course but with the added “scavenger hunt” feel that is Foursquare it’s added a different element and way to have fun when visiting a new city or special event.

I’m holding out hope that SDCC will offer special Foursquare badges like SXSW did this past year.

Sunday was my last day in Chicago and we spent most of that time at Navy Pier. I like hanging out there because it reminds me of the Inner Harbor. Of course the water there looks 100x better than the water here in Baltimore but as far as the shops and what not, it’s very similar.

While there we went on an Architecture River Cruise. The weather was perfect for it as the sun deceided to show itself on my last day in town. The tour was about an hour long and was pretty educational. I love going on boat tours when available. It’s a nice break from walking around and it’s a different way to see a city.

Our tour guide was really fun and knew his stuff when it came to the buildings and the various designs and influences. He reminded me of Hugh Laurie for some reason. He wasn’t British or anything but there was just something about him.

Here are a few more pictures I took before we headed off to kill some time at The Lincoln Park Zoo.

Since we were getting short on time we didn’t get to see much at Lincoln Park Zoo but some of the animals where out and about.

That pretty much summed up Sunday. It was a quiet day. It was nice to just relax a bit before getting on a plane to head back home. Friday & Saturday were packed full of stuff to do so Sunday was a nice change pace!

Of course I took a ton of pictures and I hope to share them over the next few days but you can see the rest of Chicago here.

After a wonderful tour of Wrigley Field we stopped by Lucky’s Sandwich Company which is located at 3472 North Clark Street for lunch.

The name might sound familiar as Adam Richman of Man Vs. Food stopped in to take on their food challenge. The challenge is to finish three of their overstuffed sandwiches and fries in an hour. Once you start you can’t leave the room, including no bathroom breaks.

Here’s a video from the Man Vs. Food episode:

None of us took part in the challenge but my friend’s husband is thinking about giving it a try. He was able to finish one sandwich in about 7 minutes. Of course one is a little different as three of their sandwiches equal about six pounds of food. Yes, six pounds. They’re pretty awesome sandwiches though and only cost around $7 each. You defiantly get your money’s worth and won’t leave hungry! I picked the Turkey & Cheese.

Don’t let the picture fool you. It’s bigger in person! If you find yourself in that area of Chicago I highly recommend stopping in for a bite.

The original plan on Friday was to visit one of the local zoo’s but since the weather was crappy we checked out The Field Museum instead. I was pretty excited to visit since the museum is home to Sue. Who’s Sue? Sue is the largest, most complete, and best preserved T. Rex Fossil yet discovered! How kick ass is that? Here is some more information on Sue:

Sue stands 13 feet high at the hips and 42 feet long from head to tail. One of the only pieces of Sue that is not mounted is her 5-foot-long skull, which is too heavy to be placed on the steel armature that holds together her more than 200 fossilized bones. In its place, the Museum has installed a cast replica. Sue’s real skull is on display in an exhibit on the second-floor balcony overlooking Stanley Field Hall. Here, visitors can get an up-close view of Sue’s massive head, as well as some insight into the mounting process and the story of how Sue ended up at The Field Museum. In addition, visitors can view animated CT scans of the skull and touch a variety of casts of Sue’s bones, including a rib, forelimb and tooth.

Of course we checked out other exhibits while we were there like the Grainger Hall of Gems, The Ancient Americas and the Ancient Egypt exhibit that featured 12 mummies. We spent a good part of the day there, arriving around 10:30ish and not leaving until around 2:00. Some of the exhibits were interesting but some weren’t. They had a complete area that featured stuffed wildlife and that’s something I’d rather see alive at the zoo. Of course many years ago it wasn’t that easy and you needed exhibits like that to teach and learn from. It just seems a little outdated now but that’s only my opinion.

All in all we had a great time though and I’m glad I was able to see Sue up-close & personal! Here are a few pictures from the visit and you can view the rest here.

As always I’m going to break my vacation down into a few posts!

On Saturday my friends and I went on a tour of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. We picked one of the earlier tours, 11:30, thinking that maybe there wouldn’t be a crowd. We were wrong. I believe we had 65 people in our tour group!

The tour started off by showing a video that featured some of the great Cubs players and other information about Wrigley. After the video ended we made our way out to the bleachers. It was pretty amazing to be in such a historic ballpark. It’s very different from the modern home of the Orioles, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I was actually surprised though at how well the stadium looked for being built in 1914. Of course upgrades have happened over the years like the suite boxes that were installed for the 1990 All-Star Game. While in the bleachers our tour guide shared some personal stories as well as filling us in on the history of the park including what the various flags atop the stadium stood for.

After the bleachers we made our way to the visitor clubhouse. A fun fact about the tour guide is the fact that he actually handles the visiting team and sometimes even has to sleep in the clubhouse. He actually has a locker and an air mattress on hand just in case. The clubhouse is pretty small and I can’t imagine fitting a baseball team, let alone a football team, in it. It’s amazing that they do! In order to make things easier on the staff the visiting players lockers are put in numerical order. Another interesting piece of information is it takes the visiting team 3 minutes to get to the field from the clubhouse. When Wrigley hosted the NHL Winter Classic it actually took visiting hockey team 5 minutes to make it down to the field.

On the way to the Cubs clubhouse we stopped at the media box and took in the view. It’s pretty neat to see the ivy wall in the outfield and the rooftop bleachers that are set up on various buildings across from Wrigley. We made our way down to the Cubs locker room where everything was actually set up since they would be returning from an away trip soon. We couldn’t get close to the lockers though since they were roped off. Since we had such a large group we had to do a drive by as far as the locker room went. There wasn’t enough room for everyone and after the locker room we walked out into the dugout. It was pretty awesome to be sitting the same dugout that some of the Cub greats had sat in at one point in time. The view from the field is pretty breath taking. We were able to take pictures in the dugout and in the roped off area which was basically the warning track area in front of the dugouts and behind home plate.

I had a really great time on the tour and loved learning the history of such a well known and loved ballpark. I hope I’m able to make it there for a game in the near future!

You can see the rest of the photos from Wrigley Field here.

Thursday night I’ll be leaving Baltimore and heading to Chicago for a long weekend visit with my BFF. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a few months. After my sister’s wedding I need a little mini-vacation of my own!

We have a few things planned already. Saturday we’ll be going on a Wrigley Field Tour which I’m really excited about. One day I will get out there for a game but I guess this is the next best thing. Afterwards we plan on spending most of the day downtown. I hope to be able to visit The Field Museum. The main reason I want go there is to see Sue. Who’s Sue? Sue is the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil yet discovered. I love dinosaurs and this would be a real treat. I’m sure we’ll hit up Navy Pier and the other Chicago landmarks on Saturday before we go on our Weird Chicago Tour. There’s a group of 16 of us going on this tour. It doesn’t start until 10pm and it’s about 2-3 hours long I think. This means Saturday is going to be a long day!

Friday we might try to visit a local zoo but that depends on the weather. Right now it looks like a good chance of rain but hopefully that will change as we get closer to the weekend. If it does rain we might move the museum to Friday.

I almost forget to mention that Saturday night we’ll be staying at The Palmer House Hilton downtown. We were able to get a really good deal ($89 a night) and couldn’t pass it up. Plus who wants to drive home at 1am after a ghost tour? Not us.

Of course the best part of the trip is just being able to visit my BFF. We don’t get to see each other often obviously so we’re really exciting about this!

Foursquare is one of the newest social networking websites. It lets you share your location with your friends and via Twitter. It can seem a bit stalkerish but it’s fun and not really creepy. It’s pretty easy to use as you just “check in” using your mobile device while you’re out and about.

Foursquare is such “the rage” now that some companies and even cities are awarding special badges for checking out various locations. What’s a badge? It’s just another fun aspect of Foursquare. You can earn all sorts of badges for doing a variety of things like checking in while on a boat or for visiting 25 new places. There are a large number of badges that you can earn. You can find a list of all of the Foursquare badges here. It’s updated on a pretty regular basis and even has inactive or closed badges.

Anyway, back to the title of this post! If you live in or visit Chicago you can earn some special badges via Explore Chicago. You do need to follow them on Foursquare in order to earn the badges, keep that in mind. At the moment you can earn three different Chicago related badges. They are: Chicago Blues, Celery Salt & On Location.

Chicago Blues centers on the blues music scene if that wasn’t obvious enough from the name of the badge. In order to earn the badge you must check in at five of the approved locations. Don’t worry; there are 17 different locations to choose from including the Historic Site of the IL Central Depot: The Black Ellis Island, Roosevelt & Indiana and Rosa’s Lounge.

Celery Salt is all about the Chicago Style hotdog. I can already taste them! As with the previous badge you must check in at five different locations. Again you have a decent list to choose from which includes 12 different locations ranging from Wrigley Field to Portillo’s.

The last badge you can earn centers around films that have been filmed in and around Chicago and gives you a few choices. Your choices are “The Blues Brothers,” “Dark Knight,” Chick Flicks in Chicago, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “High Fidelity.” In order to earn this badge you must pick ONE movie-themed experience and again check in at five different locations that are on the list. A few of the locations are Daley Plaza, The Auditorium Theatre, The University of Chicago, Navy Pier, The Art Institute of Chicago and Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse.

I think I might try and earn the Celery Salt badge on my next trip out to Chicago. I think featuring something like this for a city makes it a little more fun and make it feel like a scavenger hunt. Plus it’s an easy way to get people to visit parts of the city they might not even think about checking out otherwise!

It won’t be long until I’m on a mini-vacation in Chicago to visit the BFF. This trip will be a little different though. We actually plan on staying Downtown one night at a hotel. The main reason for doing this is because we’re going on a group ghost tour that doesn’t start until around 10pm and won’t end until almost 1am in the morning. Who wants to drive home that late? Exactly.

Since we’re only staying one night we didn’t want to blow too much money. We thought we had found the perfect room for four of us but the rate ending up changing. We went back on the hunt for a decent hotel and a decent price and stumbled upon The Palmer House Hilton. We were able to score a room for just $89 a night before taxes! How amazing and awesome is that? We ended up getting two rooms but still. We had to pay in advance as well but that’s not a big deal seeing how we know our date isn’t going to change or anything like that. If you didn’t prepay the lowest rate available was $169 for one double bed or $199 for the room we selected which was a room with two double beds.

The parking is a bit high but we plan on trying to find a self pay overnight lot nearby. We did some research and it looks like there are two lots in the area that we could use. The hotel is pretty much in the middle of everything which is perfect for this little Downtown vacation. While I’ve been to Chicago to visit her before we haven’t done much tourist stuff and believe it or not this is my first trip out to see her during a Spring/Summer month. Normally I’m out there in the Fall/Winter.

Since Southwest was having a sale I went ahead and booked a flight out to visit my friend who lives in Chicago. I’ve been out there a few times now and really enjoy it. We’ve already made plans for that Saturday and I’m beyond exciting. We booked our own private ghost tour with Weird Chicago Tours!

It’s only $450 with $100 down for 16-20 people. They say that the bus they use can fit 20 but it’s a tight fit, that 16 is a better number. As of right now we have 9 “Yes” and about 7 “Maybe.” It’s about 3 hours and our tour will be starting around 10pm. We wanted to make sure it was nice and dark to add to the spookyness. They have a couple different tours to pick from and we went with the classic:

Weird Chicago’s History & Hauntings Tour
This is our standard (although rarely ever the same thing twice!) tour of Chicago’s most haunted places, crime spots, disaster sites and all around weird stuff. We travel throughout the city in search of Chicago’s spookiest and strangest places and take visitors along for a first-hand look at what makes it one of the most haunted cities in America! This 3-hour tour offers both on and off the bus locations and visits a wide array of authentic haunts on the north side, west side and the Loop. Each tour is different but is guaranteed to send shivers down the spine! Embraced by ghost enthusiasts and history buffs alike, you won’t find another ghost tour like it in Chicago!

I did ask though when I reserved it if we could add a side of serial killer since I’m a true crime buff. Maybe we can sneak a little John Wayne Gacy or H.H. Holmes into the mix.

I’m really looking foward to the tour and just visiting Chicago again. Believe it or not, I think this is my first trip during nice weather. All my other Chicago trips have been in the winter/fall months. No idea why, it just always seemed to work out that way. Hopefully this time I’ll make it out to Wrigley Field.