There are no good wines on that list. I recommend sticking with the bottled water that Anwar and Trigirl are bringing.

Hardy-har-har!

I went over the list last night and identified about 30 wines I want to try, including at least a dozen that it would just be wrong to spit.

I wonder what Otis' non-wine geek neighbours will think when they see us taking a sip, swishing the wine around in our mouths like mouthwash, then horking it into a dump bucket! I suppose they've seen it before at previous CDPs.

Personally, I won't be spitting any wine - unless I really don't like it!

Thanks again for all the tourism advice.

We ended up getting a Chicago CityPass, which essentially gave us half price entry into the followed attractions for half price (the passes were $49.50 each), PLUS a freebie for each (i.e. Imax film), PLUS we didn't have to stand in line but went right to the Will Call desk at each place:

Shedd Aquariaum
John Hancock Building
Field Museum
Adler Planetarium
Art Institute
Science and Industry Museum

I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone visiting Chicago (it's also available in other cities) even if you will visit only two or three places. It's worth it just to avoid the lines!!

We missed live blues but got a bit of live jazz at lunch at Andy's, a nice place with good food at fair prices, especially considering the live music.

Never did much shopping, except at the Target next to the hotel, which did offer a free shuttle which we used each day. The $20 weekly CTA passes were also a good deal and allowed to roam to our hearts content.

We didn't manage to hit any of the above mentioned restaurants except Smoke Daddy, and that only for takeout (tried to get to Twin Anchors but weren't up to more El-train-ing), but we did like two places a lot: Big Bowl, and Cafe Ba-ba-reeba.

Here's hoping we get back to Chicago in the near future to do all the things we missed the first time!