My trip to Chicago to attend Pierre Hermé class

The journey started on Friday, May 16, 2008. My husband and I woke up at 3:30 am that morning since we planned to leave the house by 4 am. We had to leave very early since we already made a dinner reservation at Charlie Trotter's at 5:30 pm on that same day. We figured out that it would take us 13 hours to drive to Chicago from New Jersey. However, eventhough I'd finished packing the night before, we didn't leave the house until almost 5 am. Thankfully Chicago is 1 hour behind, so we'd gain 1 hour when we arrive there.

The car ride was very smooth, no problem at all, but the weather was a different story. It was raining continuously since we left the house until when we were in Ohio, which means about 7 hours. My husband drove most of the time, I drove only 2 hours after the rain stopped.

We didn't have a proper meal along the way, only a late breakfast from McDonald's since it was next to the gas station where we filled up the car and some chips or cookies in between (not healthy). We didn't want to waste any time since we were on a tight schedule.

McDonald's and Cinnabon, the breakfast of champions

We finally arrived around 4:30 pm in Chicago (local time, I'd set the clock back 1 hour). The traffic was heavy on I-90 towards downtown (just realized it was rush hour), so we decided to take the local road to go to our hotel (Park Hyatt Chicago). I must say that Garmin Nuvi GPS is worth every penny! We wanted to check in first and change our clothes before going out for dinner. We got into our room at 5:15 pm, so we called the restaurant to let them know that we'd be late, luckily they understood. The restaurant said their only concern was that we wouldn't be able to "experience the whole thing" -- we were not sure what it meant but we let it went by.

With the proper attire, we headed up to Charlie Trotter's. Read our Charlie Trotter's experience on my next post.

After the Charlie Trotter 'experience', we went back to our hotel and went straight to bed since we were very tired.

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Park Hyatt Chicago
800 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 335-1234
http://www.parkchicago.hyatt.com/