nic's birthday weekend

Similar to four years ago, for Nic's 24th birthday, I surprised him with a weekend in Chicago for his 28th birthday a few weekends ago.

Although things didn't go exactly as planned, it was a great weekend that is one that won't be forgotten any time soon.

We headed out late Friday night, stopped at New Pioneer Coop to pick up some dinner and snacks for the road. We pulled into Chicago late enough to pay for the $50 parking at the hotel and hit the sack.

Saturday morning we headed out to Michigan Ave to make a quick stop at the Apple store to get Nic a new phone (there was a problem with his iPhone and thankfully it was still under warranty so he was able to swap it out for a new one). I grabbed a shiny new case for my phone as I had broken it a few days prior.

We then walked a very chilly 1.5 miles to the Chicago French Market and had a sample of some amazing raw food from RAW. This stop inspired my new favorite dessert - ever.

 



When we visit Chicago, we walk everywhere. Literally.

But this weekend was absolutely chill-you-to-the-bone cold. So we flagged down a cab for a ride back to the hotel.

A 1.5 mile ride that was well worth the money.

Until we realized my iPhone had fallen out of my jacket pocket in the cab. Crap. We called it and spoke with the cab driver, who said he would drop it off at the hotel in a few minutes.

So while we waited for our car, we tracked my phone.

We continued to wait.

We continued to track.



More tracking. And more waiting.

There were multiple times we thought the phone was only a few minutes from being returned, but after an hour of waiting, we decided to move on to our next location.

We told that valet that a cab was going to be returning my phone, and hoped for the best.



We had some fun at the Science and Industry Museum.





And made sure to get our money's worth (parking and tickets were expensive!!).







After a few hours exploring the museum, we tracked the phone again. This time, instead of hopping around downtown, it looked like my phone was remaining stationary in one place on the north end of Chicago.

We decided to see how close we could get, hoping the cab driver was still in his cab accepting fares.

Although we didn't have a definite plan, we were hoping that we could catch him between fares and simply ask for the phone back.

Naive much?

Once we pulled into the neighborhood, I knew were weren't getting the phone back. We were able to track it to one house, wrote down the address and headed to the police station.

They suggested we send another message to the phone telling whomever had it to meet us at Dunkin Donuts and we would trade cash for the phone.

Message sent.

And we waited again.



And waited some more.



Not wanting to waste our entire weekend waiting, we headed to the Chicago Diner for dinner.


(source)

What a treat after a long, stressful day. The Chicago Diner exceeded expectations and even Nic, the non-vegan of the house, enjoyed dinner.

We headed back to the hotel to get ready for Nic's birthday present - a showing of Green Day's "American Idiot" at the Oriental Theater.





The show was great - amazing music and a great story.

Sunday morning we stopped for brunch at Karyn's on Green, ate some more amazing vegan food and enjoyed a few drinks before heading back to Iowa.



But not before stopping by our second police station for the weekend to fill out a stolen property report.



Surprisingly, we were contacted by a detective the next day who is following up on my stolen phone. Although I don't have high hopes that I will be getting it back, I am impressed at the work that is being done to locate it.

Although it sucks that I lost my phone, the real kick-to-the-pants, punch-to-the-face is that I had just purchased a new case for it less than an hour prior. And of course, I swapped out the case at the store, instead of waiting until we got back to the hotel to do so.

Here's hoping...right??