Wednesday, August 15, 2018

8.15.18 - Souvenirs and the trip home


I have a hard time sleeping on travel days, even though we had plenty of time. I really wanted to find some kind of thank you gift (or gifts) for Don & Merlene and for Dad before we left. If I had known how much we’d have left in the budget I probably would have just gotten them things from the Aquarium gift shop, which had several cute options. Oh well.

So Jack and I got up and walked across the river to one of a chain store called Bye Bye Chicago, which is a souvenir shop. But it wasn’t really what I was looking for. It was just a lot of different types of products with the word “Chicago” on them or pictures of the cityscape, and that’s fine but kind of boring and clichĂ©.

We decided instead to head back to the Art Institute because, as I recalled, their gift shop is outside the museum itself, so you can walk right in without worrying about admission.

But first on the way we needed to figure out something for breakfast. I had snacked at the hotel and Jack had finished the rest of the Malnati’s from the night before, but it wasn’t really enough and certainly wouldn’t be enough up until we left for the airport. So we stopped in the Nutella CafĂ©, which we had walked past a couple times throughout the week, and I got a Nutella and strawberry crepe and Jack got some kind of ham, cheese, and egg sandwich. They were both delicious albeit pretty overpriced. We ate quickly and headed to the Art Institute.

The gift shop was awesome. I’m so glad we went there instead of just grabbing whatever from Bye Bye Chicago. They had lots of merchandise with famous paintings on them, including some of my favorites. I ended up buying several magnets—one for Dad, the rest to keep at home, and a bunch of postcards (hopefully to eventually frame at home), and a really pretty umbrella for Don & Merlene that included “A Rainy Day in Paris” by Gustave Caillebotte.

When we finished we walked over to Buckingham Fountain because I did want to see it once more before we left. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Such a beautiful fountain. We stood in light mist for a while although I was trying to be careful not to let the postcards get wet.

On our walk back we also stopped by the now-open Garrett’s popcorn and got a bag of the Chicago mix (cheese and caramel popcorn together) to bring Beth, by special request. Apparently she loves that stuff. And there was something enjoyable about walking the rest of the way to the hotel with bags from both Garrett’s and the Art Institute. So quintessential Chicago I guess. They both had kind of pretty decorate bags too.

We got back to the hotel, checked out, and grabbed a Lyft back to Midway. We were there incredibly early, but it’s nice to be in no hurry and to have no children to keep entertained. I was impressed with the TSA’s system for returning empty bins back to the front of their conveyer belts: it was all automated. Other than that we (painfully) bought overpriced airport lunch and snacks and then Jack watched Breaking Bad while I started working on this record of our trip until it was time to fly back home.

On the plane ride back we both continued to do those things but at some point grew tired of it and watched the beginning of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on my laptop. Don picked us up at the airport and brought us back to a very clean apartment and a Costco rotisserie chicken, of course. The girls were already asleep and we visited with Don and Merlene for a while. We told them about our trip in more detail and they told us a lot about how the visit with the girls went. They seemed to truly love it. So overall it was a good cap to an amazing honeymoon.

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