8 Hours in the Windy City

Chicago is another one of America's gems. My buddy had never been, so I figured we could make a pit stop on our way back across the country to show him the windy city. Here's how we did it, and how we got destroyed but deep dish pizza.

This fountain is no joke, it really is one of the few fountains in the world worth taking time out of your precious day to check out.

Navy Pier has a ton of things to do, from a botanical garden to Ferris wheels to Bubba Gumps to 4D cinemas-you'll find everything here.

We left our bags at the Hilton O'Hare and hopped on the Blue Line from the airport to Jackson Street in downtown Chicago. We started at Meli Cafe for breakfast where we got great service, tastey food and coffee to wake us up after a "red-eye" from JFK earlier that day. After filling ourselves up with some pancakes and omelettes, we walked it off by strolling across to the Buckingham Fountain, then up through Millennium Park and the world famous "Bean", and towards the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave.) via a quick pit stop at a mini-golf course, where I showed my buddy who the master of mini-golf is-twice. After strolling around and doing some window shopping on the Magnificent Mile, we turned to the east and headed to Navy Pier. After walking basically around the whole city, we made a necessary pit stop at Giordano's, which is a Chicago staple. We made a crucial mistake of ordering too many appetizers, which were awesome, but did not let us finish our fantastic deep dish pizza. We were so full after the meal, we walked down the pier, found an open chaise lounge chair, and passed out for the better part of an hour before realizing that we had homework to do (not kidding). So we walked back across the city and found a nice spot down by the river to complete our homework before hopping back on the Blue Line and heading back to the airport to catch our flight to Los Angeles.

Just checking himself out, making sure his hair looks good, the usual.

So I know that was sort of an overly simplified version of what we did, and I wrote it in a pretty straight-forward way, but that shows you a few things about the city. It shows how simple the city is and how accessible everything is, along with showing how it is possible to see the main attractions of Chicago in a short amount of time. In short, here's what we did that basically showed the highlights of the city in a few hours:

• Buckingham Fountain
• Millennium Park
• Magnificent Mile
• Navy Pier
• Riverfront

Simple as that. Obviously, Chicago has so much more to do, and maybe I'll write about it in more depth in another blog post, but when it comes to what you should do on a quick layover, this itinerary is your best bet.