Wyndham O'Hare Hotel 3*, Chicago, USA

Well, not exactly Intercontinental Chicago...:)

The lobby was HOT, could need some air-conditioning. There were a fan there, but it didn't work very well. The cheking in went easy, without any problems.

I had read reviews of this hotel at tripadvisor and was expecting something very bad. The room is bigger than at the Intercontinental and the bed looks nice. There *is* air-condition here, but it's not very effective. The temperature when I came to my room was 28 degrees C! I tried to speed it up, but nothing happened. The good, old, "opening the window" worked better!

The bathroom is very small and the shower/bathtub was not very attractive...

I am curious about these toiletries as they look good!

Thumbs up for the coffe-maker with pods AND cups of paper! Maybe not very environment friendly, but very friendly for a clean-freak. :-D Nice with bottled water too! (However, not sure if it is complimentary or not...)

It will be interesting to see how the conference-rooms work if there is no air-condition there... We'll see tomorrow. I would NOT have stayed at this hotel in the middle of the summer!

I am going to investigate the area now, see if there are any places to eat/drink. When driving in it looked like it's in the middle of no-where, but close to the airport. Right now, when having the windows open, I can hear the traffic from the airport very well, but it may be different when I close the windows. Eeeeh, I will either be cooked or troubled with the noise from the airport.... :-/

It's raining!

Today it's raining and it's going to be thunder-storms today, tomorrow and the day after. I'm going to move hotel at noon, Wyndham O'Hare which is close to the airport, where my class is going to be held. From now on my little holiday is over and it's going to be work, work, work. BUT I am sure it will be both interesting and fun and I now I will learn lots of new things.

Swine flu in the US

It's not in Chicago, but I have to admit I've become a little bit anxious about this. It's in the news over and over again and it's difficult to understand exactly how anxious one should be when being outside Mexico. This is the worst about the big information-flow. In one way people get scared to death about small things, but in another way, people are thinking that it can't be that bad and don't take cautions.

Well, I suppose the only thing I can do is to wash my hands, get enough sleep and eat healthy.

Unclassified pictures :-D

Only because I don't remember what/name/who etc...

I remember this... This is going to be a building, created as a Christmas-tree. I am not sure, but I THINK the bus-driver said this is going to be the biggest or tallest when it's finnished.

The queens fountain, I think...

Chicagos oldest Italian restaurant

This restaurant has three floors. One expensive, one less expensive and one cheap...

Hersheys's chocolate

More sweets for free with my bus-ticket.

Garrett popcorn

Well, I have only heard about popcorn with different tastes, until today. Luckily I got a bag for free with my bus-ticket. Either you hate it or you love it, I have to admit... I LOVE IT! CaramelCrisp popcorn... yummi....

Millennium Park

Sculptures

Unfortunately I don't remember who/what/when etc... At least I have seen them! :-D

The next biggest

Oprah Winfrey's house

One of them.... :-D

Water Tower Place

This is a shopping center and inside the shopping center I found this shop

This is a BIG shop for... girls... Pink, pink, pink....

NBC

The NBS building is very close to my hotel. The Jerry Springer show

is being made here.

High, higher, highest!

When looking through all my photos from todays bus-trip, I discovered that there are lots of high houses in Chicago. For every high house we passed the bus-driver said: "This is the next highest, was the highest, the third highest.... house..." And people said oh and ah and took pictures. Of course I did the same!

Would you be the builder here? Scary....

This was the highest house in Chicago in 17 (or was it 18?) something. The house is built in brick, even the walls inside!

This is Saers tower. The highest building in Chicago. I'm a chicken, I didn't dare to go up...

This is yet another high building, but the funny thing with this building i that they have the parking-deck in the middle of the building! You can see the way to the parking-deck in the ceiling.

This is not the highest, but the biggest in square meters.

Good morning Chicago!

The weather is lovely today, sun and 23 degrees C! My plan for today is to take the hop on/off bus. It's a little bit expensive, it's a very convenient way to get to see all the touristic places. Another plan is to visit my "friends" at Ferragamo. They are going to have a preview of the summer (or was it autumn?) collection today and of course, they invited me... Wonder why......:-D

Shopping in Chicago

All the GOOD shops are in the North Michigan Ave. You have Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Maceys and all the designer-shops.

Some days ago I got an e-mail from my favorite shop in the USA, White house, black market. They invited me to a two days sale with 25% off all items. Luckily the two days were today and tomorrow, the two days I have in Chicago downtown! The shop is across the street from my hotel, more luck...:) Although I was pretty jet-lagged and woke up with a terrible head-ache that continued throughout the day, I managed to do some shopping... Retail-therapy... :-D I "spaved" a lot today! Here is some of it....











After spending some money at White hous, black market I went to Salvatore Ferragamo. And guess what? I found a purse I have been looking for all over Europe. I saw it at Hawaii and have been regretting I didn't buy it ever after. I didn't buy it at once, I still had a head-ache and was afraid it would affect my judgment. I headed for the next shopping-center...




I went in, looked at the cosmetic department and found my perfume. Well, I don't actually need a new one, but if I bought it, I would get a small present... After all I have used this perfume for ages, as my summer-perfume, so I WILL need it sooner or later!







I REALLY liked the bag... It's not leather, and it's not very exclusive, but nice when going to the beach! I needed a new beach-bag! The makeup and the small purses were another bonus! :-D

After lunch I headed back to Ferragamo. The head-ache was gone and I could think very clear!

Hahaha, the shopping-bag and box from Ferragamo really suits my red coat! :-D

Shopping in Chicago has been a pleasure. The people who work at the shops are so very friendly. At White house, black market I was offered a bottle if water and biscuits and at Ferragamo I got a bottle of Pellegrino. I know, I know, they all do it to sell more, but it's better to shop from friendly people than from the grumpy people working in Rome or London...

Hotel Chicago Intercontinental, Chicago, USA 4+*

April 2009


There were two people in front of the check-in counter. You should think that would go pretty easy, but it took ages. I’ve never waited that long to check-in before…

When I got to my room, at the third floor, the air-conditioning was blowing like crazy. I asked the bell-boy to turn it off, but it was broken. I had to change room. The new room was exactly the same as the first one except that there were no shampoo/soap dispensers in the shower. At the first room there were the dispenser PLUS individual toiletries. There were also a questionnaire that said they had started using the dispenser, but then found that their guests may would prefer getting the small toiletries so they had some questions regarding that. Thumbs up for the small toiletries from me!


I tried the toiletries and they are good, and they look nice! Me like! :-D


The shower and bath-tub could need to be replaced.





I would believe the room is small compared to US standard, but compared to European standard it's big enough. Since I booked a double room, but came by my own, they gave me a twin room. The beds were BIG. Not sure one bed would fit for two... well... it depends on how big you are (and how much in love you are...:-))!






The hotel is in the middle of the shopping-district. Very convenient for a shopaholic... :-D

I went to see the swimming-pool. The hotel is famous for the swimming-pool! In my opinion it looked nicer at pictures than in real... I wished there were steam-rooms, a jacuzzi and a spa connected to the swimming-pool.

I booked this hotel through Hotwire and only payed about 110 USD per night for bed only. For that price I would have stayed here again, but not for the full rack rate, that is about 250-300 USD. There is a Starbucks in the lobby so I didn't went for breakfast at the hotel.