If there is one thing I love about going on vacation - besides the obvious - it's being able to see parts of the world that I have never seen before. And being someone who's goal it is to travel the country when I retire, seeing as much as I can of the world has always been one of my main priorities. And since I was given the honor of becoming Cole's Godfather this weekend - it gave me a chance to see Chicago. To be honest, I have always wanted to see the Windy City. And thanks to Dan and Kandice - I finally got that opportunity.

When I landed at O'Hare Airport and was greeted by Kandice, Lynn, Bob and my fellow New Yorker Sara, we headed to her car to drive to her house - and I got my first look at Chicago. The first thing I noticed was that this City is extremely clean. While I am not saying that New York is a mess - Chicago certainly wins the cleanliness race. I also noticed - probably due to my job - that they have a tremendous amount of yellow taxi cabs - making me feel right at home.

After a quick stop at the house, Kandice, Cole and I went to pick up Dan from work, and have dinner at The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company - a restaurant based on the character from Forrest Gump. In fact, one of the employees of the restaurant is a Forrest look-alike that visits everyone's table with his little white suitcase and tells everyone that life is just a box of chocolates.

One of my favorite things about visiting new places is trying the local cuisine, and I will say that The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was a great place to start. Located in The Navy Pier, which at one time was a part of Chicago's Naval Base and is now a tourist mall with a Ferris wheel and a mini golf course, The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company lives up to its name - offering patrons literally dozens of shrimp varieties including some even I have never heard of. For dinner, I had a "bucket of boat trash", which contained shrimps, something called "slipper lobster" which is a smaller and more flavorful variety of traditional lobster, and Mahi Mahi, which is a fish native to the Hawaiian Islands. Not only was the food phenomenal, but the restaurant atmosphere made for a great first dinner in Chicago.

Today is Saturday and our plans are to drive around the city and pick up things we need for tomorrow's baptism, which means that I get to see more of this fine town - I can't wait.