Its a Greekin' Weekend!

Erik and I just had a lovely little weekend in one of our favorite cities, Chicago! We stayed in a neighborhood called Greektown. Since we have really only stayed on or right next to the Magnificent Mile, we were both excited to see what it had in store for us. 

The Windy City stayed true to its nickname Saturday so we weren't able to explore the neighborhood too much. We decided to go to the Garfield Park Conservatory for the day. It was gorgeous, and free! We did make a donation, but I'm so surprised at how amazing it was considering it was free. 

I was craving seafood, so for dinner we went to a little Greek restaurant, Santorini. 

We started with some orgasmic oysters.

The atmosphere of this place was so cool. You got that upscale feeling while still feeling like you were surrounded by a big family. Plus, dinner came with a show. I guess a big thing to order there was Saganaki or cheese flambe. They were lit table side accompanied by a boisterous "OPA!"

After dinner we hopped a cab to The Motel Bar where we were taking a painting class! A company called Colors and Bottles, which has branches in almost every major city, rents out restaurants and brings in artists to teach classes. We were able to order cocktails and others ordered appetizers. It made for a really fun evening. We were both shocked at how well we did. 

Original Painting

Hands are really hard to paint...

Sunday we wanted to go for breakfast at another Greek restaurant, but the wait was much too long. We ended up in a fresh market, Mariano's, just across from our hotel. This place put our local big chain grocer, HyVee, to shame! It was three floors, the first being a coffee bar. The other floors were all fresh, organic produce complete with an oyster bar, wine bar, and omelet bar each that you could sit down at, buffet, specialty patisserie, florist, and extensive international section. They even fresh squeezed their own OJ and grapefruit juice! This place had amazing prices, too - cheaper than Iowa City by far. Grocery shopping might be added to the list of excuses to go to Chicago more often.

We are definitely going to stay in Greektown again.