dress gold

Happy New Year readers; hope all is well!!

Today I’m sharing some things from my family’s impromptu trip to Chicago for New Year’s.  I’ll be splitting up the posts by day because we stayed at a different hotel each night, and saw key spots over the course of 2.5 days (I don’t want this post to be too busy and overwhelming).  We began our getaway on New Year’s Eve so it was the most relaxed day of the trip, spent mostly at the hotel and different restaurants.

*I apologize for the lack of outfit content in this post; the lighting was not in my favor on NYE.

What We Saw:

   

Where We Ate: Lou Malnati’s & the Palmer House Hotel

It’s not a proper Chicago experience without eating deep dish pizza; we ate at the famous Lou Malnati’s.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the pizza to share on the blog, along with their famous salad 😦

Pictured above is Bertha’s Brownie, the pioneer of all brownies; the brownie dessert was invented at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago.  We enjoyed this delicious dessert at the hotel lounge–I highly recommend tasting this brownie if you ever have the chance (my sweet tooth was in heaven), despite being a bit pricy for a small dessert..

Where We Stayed: Palmer House Hotel

 

While the hotel lobby and outside are stunning, the rooms are pretty standard, but spacious.  Lots of history surrounds this hotel, leading to its positive reception, but our personal experience was far from luxurious or exclusive.  I was disappointed in some of the service from the staff, along with what the hotel looked like the morning after a massive NYE bash.  I understand that there was a high volume of people in the hotel for that night, but even after the late check-out had expired (a generous 2 p.m. check out), the hotel remained uncleaned; you would think that the hotel would have been cleaned by the next afternoon.  On my way to the elevators I saw a half eaten apple rotting on the floor in the hallway, along with confetti bits in every inch of the lobby and hallways, and overflowing garbages throughout the hotel.