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Boogie Near the Bean at Chicago's Free Winter Dance Festival

Chicago is trying to prevent people from hibernating this winter by enticing them to boogie on down at the new Chicago Winter Dance Festival, which debuts this month at Millennium Park. Best of all, you can shake it for free.

Modeled after the city's super-popular SummerDance series, the month-long festival offers an hour of dance lessons and time afterward to work your new skills. But the festival will add another perk by allowing you to show off your moves at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink with skating lessons, ice dancing demonstrations and nighttime themed ice parties.

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Chicago Opens Its First Indoor, All-Year European Market

The Windy City picked a perfect time to open Chicago French Market, the city's first indoor market that's open all year long, since the snowy, brrr-inducing winter weather doesn't really inspire you to go out and hit Michigan Avenue for shopping.

Housed in the West Loop's new MetraMarket, which is conveniently located in the Ogilvie Transportation Center, the European-inspired market offers products from local artisans, farmers and purveyors, primarily gourmet food and wine.

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Tags: Thanksgiving Travel / Chicago Travel / Holiday Travel / Events / → All Tags

A Guide To The Second Best Thanksgiving Parade, In The Second City

Obviously, the biggest Turkey Day festivities happen in New York City, but a good second option is Chicago's 76th annual McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade. The name doesn't carry the panache that Macy's does, but it's probably the country's second-most-famous parade to see gargantuan balloons, floats, marching bands and numerous performers.

Dress warmly and go to iconic State Street early to get a head up on the 400,000 spectators expected to attend. The action steps off at Congress Avenue from at 8 a.m. and heads north, ending at Randolph Street at 11 a.m. We recommend snagging a spot in front of Macy's on State Street. It'll be crowded, since it's the parade end point, but it's also the spot where all of the dancers and other acts stop to perform. You could also shell out $50 for the VIP treatment, which allows you to see the first-hour performances live with television zone seating, a continental breakfast and VIP-only restrooms.

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'Top Chef Master' Rick Bayless Cooks Up Mexican Street Food At Chicago's New 'Xoco'

After winning Bravo's first Top Chef Masters, Rick Bayless didn't sit around resting on his 27-ingredient mole. Instead, he went to work and recently opened Xoco (pronounced "Shoh-koh"), Mexican slang for "little sister." It's a fitting name, since the Mexican street food restaurant sits next to its upscale big sisters, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, in Chicago's River North 'hood.

The line to get in the no-reservations restaurant is out the door for lunch and dinner, so we decided to avoid the crowds and get some breakfast chow. It was a good decision, since there weren't too many people there and we didn't have a problem snagging our own table in the 40-seat cafe, which has mostly bar-like seating.

We experience the flavor, after the jump.

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How To Make Your Own Tour Of Chicago On Your iPod, For Free

The London Guarantee Building is the tour’s starting point.

In this craptastic economy, you may not have the extra bucks to buy one of those expensive tours where a guide shows you the ins and outs of a city. So we decided to try out a recession-friendly, iPod self-walking "Loop to Loop" tour of Chicago. And it's totally FREE.

Just visit the Chicago Loop Alliance's website and decide whether you want to take a theater, an art or a landmarks tour; we opted for the latter, which takes you throughout the Loop. Download the appropriate tour and add it to your iPod. But for a seamless experience you will have to do some work. The site provides you with a map of all of the landmarks, but it just lists the names of the buildings. We recommend writing down all of addresses so that you know where the heck you’re going. Click on all 23 landmark points on the website to get the addresses.

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We Lived On The Edge And Visited Willis Tower's New Ledge

The Willis Tower installed "The Ledge," these new glass boxes that jut out 4.3 feet from the skyscraper to give you that standing-on-the-edge feeling in the pit of your stomach, on the west side of the building's Skydeck on the 103rd floor.

With a name like that, you'd think it was an amusement park ride. Adding to the amusement park novelty are shirts, mugs and other paraphernalia for sale that boast "Dare to Stand Out" and professional photographers on hand to take a souvenir snapshot of you in the floating box that will be printed and framed by the time you leave the building.

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Second City Alumni Return To Chi-Town For 50th Anniversary Par-Tay

Almost every famous hilarious comic got his or her start at Chicago's Second City, a training center, theater and overall jokester factory. Its alumni includes John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, John Candy, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Rachel Dratch. The list goes on forever because this marks the company's 50th year in the funny business. Of course, Second City has to throw itself a big birthday party to celebrate.

The company's illustrious alums will come back for a weekend-long bday party, December 11 to 13. Although it's only three days, there are a ton of events. Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Martin Short and other cast members from the cult hit television show SCTV will return for two special reunion performances December 11. There will be a panel on the Colbert Report on December 12, and a Saturday Night Live panel with former players Tim Kazurinsky, Horatio Sanz and Rachel Dratch as well as current staff writer John Lutz will be December 13.

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Neighborhoods You Need To Know And Go: Chicago's Chinatown

Head to the near South Side to see one of Chicago's best and most hopping ethnic neighborhoods, Chinatown. Along Cermak and Wentworth Avenues, you'll find a slew of yummy-smelling restaurants, gift shops and teahouses.

Find out what there's to see, do and—most importantly—eat, while you're exploring Chinatown after the jump.

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Tags: Chicago Field Trip / Chicago Travel / Neighborhoods To Know And Go / Lists / Shopping Travel / Food Travel / → All Tags

Neighborhoods You Need To Know And Go: Chicago's Lincoln Square

When tourists come to Chicago, oftentimes they don't venture beyond downtown. Because this common, but easily remediable mistake, they miss out on of Chicago's best assets: its diverse neighborhoods. Lincoln Square is one such 'hood.

Once the city's German enclave, the North Side nabe now is known for the hip shops and cool cafes, restaurants and bars that line Lincoln Avenue. Plus, it's the best place to hear folk music in the city and belly up to the bar for a foamy brew. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you love Lincoln Square as much as us, and if you have any favorite spots we should know about. But for now, let's get to the meat of it with our top picks for what to do now in Lincoln Square:

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Sick of Baseball and Football? Leap Over to Chicago's Dance Festival

Every November, dance aficionados head to Chicago for the city's month-long boogie festival, Dance Chicago to see everything from ballroom to ballet to clogging to hip-hop. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Dance Chicago, and while you can expect some good dancing, the fest is changing it up this year.

The biggest change is that the festival is leaving its home base of the Athenaeum Theatre and holding performances in venues all over the region, including the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Theatre Building in Chicago and Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston. Another difference is that there are fewer acts this year, though more than 130 companies will perform. Tickets cost $20 to $25. Here are our fest picks:

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Sweeten Up Your Layover In Chicago-O'Hare At Vosges Chocolate Shop

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport might be known as one of the country's most congested airports, but thanks to the arrival of a new shop in Terminal 1 (B Concourse), ORD is also on the map for something else: designer chocolate.

The terminal has a Vosges Haut-Chocolat (pronounced "voge") shop, and although it was installed before Christmas last year. it's better late than never to pass on any chocolate news, especially with another round of holiday travel looming. Vosges, a Chicago-based company started by a world traveling woman inspired by the flavors of the world, now has two shops in NYC and one in Vegas in addition to the Windy City, and the treats continue to evolve.

Bacon and chocolate, after the jump.

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Tags: Museum Travel / Museums / Chicago Travel / Chicago / → All Tags

Chicago Gets Some Bling with The Field Museum's 'Diamond' Exhibit

This tiara, which Salma Hayek donned for a 1998 White House correspondent's dinner (who knew such dinners had a royalty dress code), will be featured at the Field.

Chicago will see some dazzle when "The Nature of Diamonds" brings more than 800 jewels to the Field Museum on October 23. You'll see bling from top-notch designers such as Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and Cartier.

The centerpiece of the exhibit will be The Vault, a reproduced vault that will showcase rare pieces that have rarely been on display. See the diamond jewelry owned by Mae West, Catherine the Great, Joan Crawford, Elton John and other celebs. A highlight is the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond, one of the world's largest and finest yellow diamonds, and the 407.48-carat Incomparable Diamond, the largest flawless diamond graded by the Gemological Institute of America and the third-largest cut diamond ever recorded.

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