After a rather uneventful Halloween night it was time to pack the bags yet again. On Tuesday afternoon my wife and I flew to Chicago where she joined a multicultural education conference. My role was - as usual - to plan leisure activities such as sightseeing and dinner locations for the free evenings.
My Wednesday began at noon, I think. After my wife's "silent" departure at 8am I turned around to get a few more hours of sleep. Then I strolled around the city towards Millenium Park spending quite some time at the Cloud Gate, nicknamed the bean. My index finger almost cramped shooting so many pictures in all different angles. Great spot if you want to fill up your memory card! Once I was convinced I had enough photos I made my way towards to conference location for pick-up service (one of my many new-found talents....). Dinner was at Petterino's, great food there.
On rainy Thursday I went to the Field Museum of Natural History. I was exited to see exhibitions of American Indian culture and other ancient cultures such as Incas, Aztecs and Mayas. Then it was time to catch a 3D movie about Sue, the T-Rex. Its skeleton was displayed in the main hall and very impressive. Seeing the giant jaw made me hungry and I grabbed a quick bite although my hopes of a dinosaur burger where not fulfilled. After lunch I went on to the Underground Adventure. It started by walking through a shrinking chamber after which I was only 1/100 of my size. The exhibition idea was to walk through soil about 1 inch below. A earthworm and a wolf spider were suddenly much bigger than me, scary stuff after Halloween. Whales were the main subject of the last exhibition I saw.
Before arriving in the US I dreamed of a couple of things I wanted to experience during my stay. One was going to listen to some live jazz. So for dinner I chose Andy's Jazz Club. The atmosphere was very nice and the Rocky Yera quartet played two nice sets for us.
Before flying back to D.C. on Sunday night we did some sightseeing during the weekend. We walked through the center, along the shore of Lake Michigan and strolled through the Navy Pier. A boat tour taught us more about all the skyscrapers. Seems to me that in Chicago the architecture is playing a bigger role than in New York City. All in all, Chicago is a great city to visit, very clean and indeed very windy.
Almost forgot: my wife told me that in one shop was a big shoe special day. There were at least hundred pairs of size 14 and 15 to chose from. I was in shoe heaven and tried even a pair of size 17! It was a new experience to wear shoes that are too big..
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| Cloud Gate, Chicago |
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| Reflections of a bean |
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| Sue |
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| Migration birds |
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| A tourist trying to find out what Marylin Monroe wears.. |
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| Chicago 'bean' architecture |
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| Downtown Chicago |
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| Skyline from Navy Pier |
Makes NYC look boring [8-)
ReplyDeleteChicago is now in the list ... well it always has been.
Try to find out about BBQ (my new hobby), you might be a bit far north and out of season but should be some events somewhere. I expect it's right up your street. Big chunks of fatty meat, seasoned, smoked and covered in lovely sauce.