We arrived to find the dining room quite full of couples and families enjoying table service beneath a nice rosy glow (that would be from the pink inserts they put in the fluorescent lights above).
The tables were decorated with plastic table cloths, paper doilies, and fake roses. Classy.
They even had special menus printed for the occasion. You don't often see 68 cent menu prices! Now that's my kinda meal! ;-)
After enjoying a few sliders, they gave us each complimentary chocolate covered brownies! Wow, dinner AND dessert on Valentine's Day for less than ten bucks... SWEET! They even took our picture...
Afterwards, we made our way to Chicago. The city looks so neat at night... especially with the cloud cover.
I had gotten us a Groupon deal for a hotel downtown called Hotel Sax. We found it fairly easily (with the help of Elly, our GPS), but finding where to park and how to get to the front door was another story. First we ended up UNDER the hotel and the street we arrived on and were even honked at, yelled at, and passed by many impatient drivers, then we made our way back up to street level and found ourselves a couple blocks away. OY! After a quick call to the hotel and a chat with the front desk about parking, we found our way back again, but still couldn't figure out where the heck we were supposed to go. One of the valet attendants finally explained that we needed to go ALL THE WAY around the block to the opposite side of where we were and we'd find the entrance and be able to park. Geezopeet, people, can't you just put a few signs up explaining stuff like this to out of towners?!! Chicago is NOT a very visitors-friendly place!
But, alas, we finally found where we needed to go, gladly gave our keys up to the valet attendant, unloaded our bags, and made our way inside... to the next mystery. Most hotel lobbies have a clearly defined front desk. Not this place. A hallway to the left with elevators. Very tall double doors straight ahead leading to a room full of couches and chairs (and what turned out to be a bar). And, what appeared to be display cases full of crystal glasses and vases to the right. ???? A man and woman came out of a door behind the display cases and asked if they could help us. Ahhhh, that must be the front desk!
After checking in... and finding out that the valet parking - our only choice for parking - was going to cost us an outrageous $57.00 for overnight parking (good God, that's highway robbery!!!!), we made our way upstairs. We couldn't resist a little fun in the elevator on the way up...
Our room had my favorite color... PURPLE!! :-) We didn't really have a super neat view, but it was okay...
We went out for a short walk around the hotel. Right outside the front door was the House of Blues (as in Jake and Elwood of The Blues Brothers). We went in to look around and checked out the gift shop. We could hear the band playing, but didn't go in to see them... they were "just okay". The building itself was kind of neat though.
We were right by the Chicago River and an incredibly delicious smelling steakhouse. If we hadn't just had White Castle... well, we'd have probably been tempted to get something at that place (and spend a whole lot more on it too)!
Back in the hotel, we passed up the mini bar - $6 for a tiny can of Pringles? $10 for a "Help, I have a headache" kit? $12 for a bottle water? $52 for a little bottle of Patron? No thanks, we're just way too frugal for that much extravagance! Geez, let's just take FULL advantage of weary travelers while we can...
The next day, we made our way across town for breakfast at a place we had seen on Chicago's Best TV show called Hashbrowns. It was really good and worth the traffic hassle. I had The "Marty" High Protein omelet with sweet potato hashbrowns. Dave had a bacon and ham omelet with regular hashbrowns. The place was really filling up by the time we left.
Next, we were off to take advantage of a LivingSocial deal I got for a place called Aroma Workshop... where we each designed our own perfume and cologne. Except for Tom's, the perfumer's, annoying obsession with the background music he had playing and his lack of focus, it was a really fun experience.
First, we started out smelling all sorts of oils.
We were instructed to put any of the ones we liked in front of us - even if we weren't sure it was a favorite, but just a scent we thought was nice. I liked quite a few... too many, according to Tom, to make my decision easier. Hmmmph...
Dave was a little more selective with his scents...
Once we had smelled them all, Tom looked over our choices and started combining scents. By this time, his co-worker, Lizzy, arrived and started helping. Once we decided on combinations we liked, they filled bottles with the oils and alcohol. They told us to think of names while they did this.
My perfume, which I named "Soft Magenta Musk", contains these oils. Magenta and Touch were combinations of other scents, but I'm not sure what all they are.
Dave's cologne, which he gave the simple name of "Me" (picture this... someone asks, "What's that cologne? It smells good." and Dave replying, "Oh, it's just Me." Hahahaha!), contains these oils.
Voila, Dave's finished cologne....
We ended the day with a nice dinner and pie for dessert at Round the Clock in LaPorte.
What a wonderful way to spend Valentine's Day! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment