My 48 Hours in Chicago

I hit the Windy City last week for the first time ever in life. My mission was to mostly eat my way around the city, but with BlogHer ’13 also occurring, I had some other blogger-related activities to attend so my time was limited. I didn’t get to do a bunch of the things I had on my list (mainly food-related) but thankfully I can always go back again and see what I missed :)

My trip did take off to a bad start when I found out at the gate that Spirit Airlines who I’d never flown before, charges $100 for carry-on bags. I booked my travel package through Priceline.com and had no clue about these fees as again, I’d never flown them before (and never will again) but even during my check-in process online it didn’t make mention of a CARRY-ON bag fee. And had I known, it would have been $40 to pay online or $50 at the ticket counter but even though I got to the airport early, I still didn’t know about this fee because in La Guardia none of the monitors had Spirit flight info (I looked around for a good 10 minutes for one before a non-Spirit agent told me where to go) and then when I finally go to near the gate was, it was practically hidden (shouldn’t gate B6 come after B5??? Not with Spirit—it was literally tucked behind a corner somewhere near gate B3). And then the gate was full so I took a seat at a neighboring gate. It wasn’t until boarding that I got hit with the $100 fee. And this is to just wheel your bag in the overhead compartment. Nobody comes to check it or anything for you and I believe this is all done just to catch first-time Spirit flyers who are unaware of these outrageous fees (I wasn’t the only one who got hit at the gate and if you Google you’ll see TONS of complaints about this—in fact they sent out a press release about the fees on Election Day last year so naturally the story didn’t get much coverage.)

Sorry, didn’t mean for this to be a Spirit Airlines bash session, but had to get that out there. I may be out $100, but it doesn’t mean I can’t warn the rest of you. AND they don’t take cash so it has to be debit or credit card. When I posted about this mess on Instagram, one person left a comment saying her mom only had cash with her and had to leave her bag behind. WHAT? SMH

So not to let that ruin my trip, I landed in Chicago and made my way downtown with my bud Christina from LoveBrownSugar.com who also happened to be on my flight and who also got caught with the carryon fee but she only had to pay $50 since she got there even earlier than I did and had time to go back to the ticket counter and through security again.

OK, I promise no more bad Spirit stories…lol.

I stayed at the River Hotel, a boutique hotel downtown on East Wacker Drive which was affordable (I paid a little over $200 for two nights), had great service, and was located near everything I pretty much needed like shopping, the conference center, and more. Cabs were readily available to take me anywhere I needed to go from right in front of the hotel and the fares were always less than $10.

We then met up with my Chi-born pal Trina from TheBabyShopaholic.com. First stop since we were hungry—Portillo’s for some Chicago-style hot dogs. I had the jumbo hot dog which included grilled onions, tomatoes, peppers, some other goodies, and a big ole pickle plus a Polish sausage, and an order of fries. It was SO good—I wound up going to Portillo’s twice that day and again right before I had to head to the airport…lol.

Selfie at Portillo’s wearing H&M tank and pants

After grubbing we headed back to the hotel to get ready for Trina’s Lipstick and High Heels event she was co-hosting with Danyell from TheCubicleChick.com and Raijean from Swa-Rai.com. The event was held at the Indique Hair Boutique on South Wabash Ave and also featured some really awesome sponsors like JustFab.com, Logitech, and Avon.

It was tons of fun—not only did I get to meet a ton of great bloggers (some of whom I corresponded with online forever and finally got to meet in person) but there were also some great shoes to look at. In fact the ladies even had a fierce shoe contest (see 15-second proof here). Aow!

So funny how I was in this mirror a good two minutes taking selfies and NO ONE reacted…lol. I’m wearing a tee from AllSaints (similar here), a Boohoo.com skirt (similar here), and JustFab sandals.

After the event, we headed over to the Verizon Wireless Time Shift Party where we grooved to hits from the 80s. Too much fun! We danced to songs like “Living on a Prayer” and “Thriller” and got to take home the brand new Blackberry Z10 phone! I’ll update you on it as soon as I get to play around with it :)

The next day I met up with a friend for lunch and then afterward Trina and I headed over to the BlogHer Expo. There were tons of brands on site but of course naturally the ones geared toward beauty and fashion caught my eye first. I headed over to the Kiss booth where they were pampering ladies with eyelash applications and manis. I didn’t have time to get anything done, but I did get to take home some of their lashes (which btw are amazing). Then I headed over to the Ulta booth to tape a short video detailing my biggest beauty oops (it involved extensions and a pair of scissors…lol) to be entered in a contest to win a $2,000 Ulta gift card.

After that Trina and I met up with Christina who was about to speak on a panel regarding finding your niche and your otherness (you know—sometimes your blog might be “too nichey” and you want to find other things to talk about).

Posing with my blogger pals: (from l to r) BabyShopaholic.com, Afrobella.com, AwesomelyLuvvie.com, Gabifresh.com, and LoveBrownSugar.com.

Then after the panels we headed over to the Wallis gifting suite at the W Hotel on Lakeshore. Remember my post about the UK e-tailer here? They had some really cute pieces but we arrived too late for me to snag anything in my size. Womp womp. BUT I did get some great ideas for fall from what I saw from what was left :)

After the suite Trina and I headed over to Bar Toma to have dinner with Glam Media and some bloggers from the network. We got there a little early so we decided to walk around and guess what was around the corner?

TOPSHOP!!! We both high-fived each other and ran towards it like there isn’t a Topshop I’ve been to a gazillion times in NYC nor a boutique at Nordstrom in Atlanta where Trina lives. We had a limited amount of time, but I did snag these bordeaux colored booties on sale:

The next day I got up early to do some store-seeing (haha). I headed on Michigan Avenue and hit my faves like Nordstrom (where I bought a sweater and a Laura Mercier lip pencil—I had to have them ship it to me because they were out, but boy is it gorgeous!!! I’ll share when it gets here), Zara (I browsed for shoes but didn’t see anything I really liked), H&M (I picked up some studded leggings and a “crop” top), and Saks (I picked up a NARS Velvet Matte Pencil but wanted to see if they had any BCBG on sale but I didn’t have enough time). Sure all these stores and more are in my homeland, but there’s something about saying “Oh, I picked this up from a shop in Chicago last summer” that makes it cooler…lol. It’s like the H&M stuff I bought when I was in Poland—like “Oh, this thing? Yeah, I picked it up while I was in Warsaw. You know…no big deal.” lol

Studded leggings I picked up from H&M.

Also, I was totally loving my EDEN BodyWorks Coconut Shea collection samples the brand sent me to use in Chicago (the brand sponsored a portion of my trip). Prior to going I had prepped my hair by cleansing with the Coconut Shea CoWash (a must-try if you do co-washes) and then conditioned with the Coconut Shea Leave-In. Then throughout the trip I used the Coconut Shea Curl Defining Creme to keep my mane (and my own hair underneath) tamed and smelling SO good. I’m one of those odd people that despite my West Indian lineage I don’t really love the scent of coconut, but I LOVE the way the EDEN BodyWorks Coconut Shea line smells. It’s also a huge plus that they kept my own hair moisturized and feeling soft. Needless to say, I’m obsessed.

And that’s that! In the limited amount of time I had in Chicago, I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I will definitely need to go back and spend more time catching up with what I missed :)

What other Chicago hot-spots should I visit next time I’m in town? Tell me in the comments!

See more of my travel episodes via the Danielle Travels tag :)