Chicago

Chicaaaaaago!

Only the best place I have ever been. Ever. Apart from home (of course) but the lure of HUGE skyscrapers, as far as the eye can see - interspersed with huge green (for now, seeing as they'll get a crap loadof snow in a few months) shared spaces with fountains, stages, statues, artworks... it's just fabulous.

The WINDY city it is, indeed too. We actually experienced some horrendous weather, and weather changes, while we were here, but it's just an amazing place. First day was so muggy that even though it was apparently just 33 degrees celsius, it felt like 38-39, I kid you not. And then (having surprisingly NOT learnt from the experience of accidently walking through one of the few bad neghbourhoods in Minneapolis - i.e. that checking gmaps pedometer is a NECESSITY before setting out with a goal in mind) we walked around 20 km in the hottest part of the day, from one end of Grant Park (near the Aquairum, if anyone can be bothered looking it up) then up to Navy Pier and around through the city,and finally back home to collapse exhausted and sweaty in an ever-so-slightly airconditioned apartment . BUT the Travelodge was right in the thick of it (we were about 2 blocks from Grant Park) - there's about 20+ km of skyscrapers and 'proper' inner city in Chicago, and then Greater Chicago is HUGE (check the Sears' Tower pics)... AND the Travelodge was cheap.

Here's the view from our window... that brown thing on stilts you can see is the above-ground section of the railway ("the L") which is oooold and it's completely cool that, even back in the day, they planned their city well and raised it up and can still have a 4-6 lane road underneath. HINT HINT crappy Brisbane planning!

The picture below is from the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. Yes,I did goon it (quite big actually) and yes,I did shriek at Nick when he tried to hop on the same side of the carriage as me 50m in the air. I'm not proud! The POINT of this pic (other than to raise my slight and continuing fear of heights, when in man-made objects that, by their nature, are very very fallible) is toshow how far the skyscrapers go north along Lake Michigan. Which is huge (obviously) and you can't see the other side of the thing... so it was cool to be mid-air flying to Washington DC and seeing both sides at once.

The pic below is taken (from the ferris wheel again) and shows the buildings going south, and a bit of the Navy Pier paraphenalia. It basically WAS a navy pier, but then they changed it into a big entertainement area, with a few rides, a theatre, lots of places to eat and drink, and it's where lots of boat tours go from ("Architecture tour of Chicago", "Tall ship tour of Chicago",Jetboat rides)... that kind of crap. And because they're so many of them (like flies) they've all got stands are are hawking their wares at you, and everyone else. We declined. It was VERY hot, and most things would have been pretty ainful. Apart from, APPARENTLY, walking really far in ridiculously hot weather. We actually had to buy sunscreen cos we were getting scorched, and there came a time where I 'declined' further photos soI didn't look like a molten pig in photos. My peaches and cream complexion is not made for such weather.

One of the many statues/art installations around the city. This is a permanent one... My friend Josh later told us its official name, but then said that locals just call it 'the Bean'. Which is what stuck (seeing that was what Nick and I already called it. Locals-to-be, hopefully...)

This thing is a giant outdoor (der) stage, permanently assembled in Milennium Park. I heard a guy taking a Segway tour say that it fits 35,000. Nick (being more mathematically minded, and for some reason knowing the capacities of most sporting stadiums around the place) said that that was not unrealistic, if everyone was standing... so yeah, it's big,and it' cool. Such a great space. All those black dangling things are speakers.

Returning to the segway tour issue - Yes, those things do tours. There is actually a plague of segway tours going on in America! We've seen them in Washington too!)

PS I chose the photo of the stadium to demonstrate something I am fast discovering. That, if I have the camera out, Nick will find a way to get his mug (or just his contemplative pose, as shown in this one) in the shot. Very cute. Like a little kid, or a doggy. Sometimes...

Nick was excited by this. We had actually seen it advertised (and considered it for accommodation, for hilarity value) but Nick said it would be too weird. Stick in the mud... but Travelodge was cheaper anyway,off Hotels.com.

So, that was day 2 - we got in at a hideous time on day 1 (9:30pm) after a bus ride from hell. About 1 1/2hours from Menomonie to Minneapolis, waited for a greyhound, which stopped at every bloody stop, had a broken toilet, and two talk-0under-water, loud sorority types, and went for 9+ hours. Awesome fun! Then SUPER grateful to be told by Josh that there was probably a direct route from Minnie to Chicago through Megabus,that would have been cheaper, quicker and comfortable. Aaaah. Bad decision on my part! And have been too scared to look it up and see that he was right, RIGHT, oh-so-right. :)

Then we met Josh (work mate from the UQ Staff Club from 2005 or something, who now lives over here with his lovely Chicagoan wife June) for drinkies and foodies with his workmate Kim (beautiful lass, tiny and can hold her drinks!) to be met by June later. We went to 5 places, all over the city and suburbs... and it was great. We would never have got to ANY of those places (figuring out transport, and danger levels of suburbs, and even HEARING about the places) and oftn a mate of Josh's HAPPENED to be on the bar, and was pretty generous with the bar tab. It... was... heaven. We went to (for those who care):

- big star (http://www.bigstarchicago.com/) - best food, cheap drinks, sitting out in the warm sun...;

- violet hour (http://www.theviolethour.com/) - fancy pants, secret unlabelled door, sitting at a dark plush bar);

- bar deville (memories... are lost);

- fat cat (http://www.fatcatbar.com/);

- green mill (http://www.greenmilljazz.com/) - famous as one of the oldest speakeasies still around... also where Al Capone hung out sometimes. PRETTY cool!!!
This is us all (plus the random guy who told us that that was Al Capone's booth - have verified Al Capone's presence at bar, but not necessarily that that was his booth. Still completely cool!)

The line-up is: Me, Nick, Random, Random's girlfriend, Josh and June. CANNOT BELIEVE Kim wasn't in the damn photo when random and his girlfriend were. So polite to take the pic!

And after we were done here, we went back to Kim's (awesome) house in another cool part of town. We could NOT have got around like this, if June hadn't of been driving us, and I appreciate that (as well as the spectacular company and generosity of the Chicago kids taking us around at all!) so much. Much love!!!

Needless to say, considering we got back when it was getting light (famous dumb/drunk quote from Lauren "Wooooowwwwww, we just don't have enough lights to get that weird reflection off the clouds!!!") the next day was a write off. Most of it... I went for a cruise at lunch time (walked about a block in search of foodies) and found something we'd completely forgotten about... Buddy Guy's Legends bar! Literallyon the next block from our hotel. So rushed (as far as my aching everything would allow) back, got Nick up, he insisted on having a shower (yawn... delay! delay!) and then we went down and had some sweet (and hip-widening) soul food for lunch, listening to a youngish blues dog, do his thing.

We subsequently went back for tea on the same day, got strong-armed into paying the cover (when the beefy, hardass bouncers camearound early to collect), got pissed, met some cool people from the outer suburbs, met Buddy, bought merch... wait a minute... what was that??? We MET Buddy Guy?????

Nick and Buddy Guy...

Nahhhhhh, just winding Dogger up with that one. Here's the real deal. The man is the MASTER of cool. He was rocking a hawaiian shirt, white shoes and socks, white pants and a white beret. He belted out a tune or two with the night's band a bit later, and it was really really one of the best things I've been there for.

We kind of, accidently, were a bit socially unaware of the scheme of the night (Buddy doesn't have pics with just anyone, and it's all at the end of the night in the merch sell-off... WHOOPS!) but Nick spotted him chilling with a wter, listening to the blues, and bowled up and asked for a piccie, and he was very gracious and gave us one.

The next day was practically a write-off two. Damn! Will we ever learn!? But there was a plus, we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken (still called that some places) and had some Chicago KFC. They also like to pretend there's grilled chicken somewhere there, but I certainly didn't see any.

Nick had the double down!!!! No bun... Just two pieces of chicken. He ate it.

Check it out here: http://www.kfc.com/doubledown/













I got something whack for the differentness of it all. Plus, after Popeyes in Atlanta, I've been hankering for some biscuits and gravy. I had the Chicken Biscuit Box. :) Popcorn chicken, potato, a biscuit (see an earlier post), corn, gravy and cheese. HA! It was still tasty tasty food. Like all hgh calorie american food. Lucky we'redoing those kms!

We extended the stay by 2 nights, having had a bit of downtime (it was raining some of those days anyway, so wouldn't have been too much fun out and about) and also having worked out exactly how long the train to Washington would take (24 hours), and that a cheaper,direct-route flight was available on the Saturday...

So the next day, we went to the tower formerly known as the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower, but everyone still calls it Sears. Ha! Sucked in Willis Corp!) It's 103 storeys high, and the lift ride is a lot gentler, although still fast, than the Q1 one. Which, considering that Sears was built about 20 years before Q1 (literally), makes me think that Q1 deliberately did it to make it seem higher. Anyway, Sears rocked. Not literally, thank god.
Left is the view south-east from Sears, along Lake Michigan.
Below is the view north-east.

It's amazing howmuch the building dwarfs everything else, because there are some big-ass buildings through there and they look like babies from that height! Which will bring metoa point further along - SCALE from 103 storeys...

There were these glass boxes hanging off the side of the Skydeck, so you could step on and get a birds eye view of what 103 storeys above a city street looks like. I say "some mysteries are best left untapped" but Nicko jumped straight out and had a dandy old time trying to get the perfect pic. Here's one of them!

Below is Nick actually IN the box. It was all I could do notto scream "get out, get out, we're only1/4 way through the trip, I can't lose you now"... but I refrained. I did squeal "don't run" at some over-sized (yes, most are) early-twenties girl who gambolled into the box Nick was in. I thought then, that maybe I should take myself away from the box. Which I did, quite happily.

Unfortunately, as I was enjoying my stroll around the safe part of the building, a lady there with her son asked for a photo of her and her son in the box... I edged upto the box and snapped. Adrenalin! Then she said she'd take one of Nick and I... I quickly declined, noting aforementioned fear of heights,to which she incredulously replied "WHAT! But when are you ever coming back here???!!!" She shamed me into edging into the box. I pride the pic below on showing that, contrary to everything I have been told my whole life, I DO have a great poker face, but my gripping clawed arm speaks a thousand fearful words unfortunately.

From Sears, we could see Lincoln Park Zoo (Lincoln Park being a suburb to the north. And yes, I am also aware of the band "Linkin Park". No coincidence, that name, methinks). Anyhoo, what looks close from 103 storeys is effed-up-far from the ground. So we walked, and walked and walked (thankfully only city and then posh suburbs this time, no unexpected gang-towns) and finally got there. Only a little bit of whinging. But I'm no good without breakfast or water. Which Nick is fast learning, because I whinge and whinge and whinge without. And it was so worth it. A free zoo? You'd expect it to be crap. But it's not. Everything's up so close, you really get a feel for the different animals. I don't know how THEY feel (smallish enclosures), but none of the animals looked too stressed or anything.

I took about 40 pics of this friendly zebra, cos he just kept getting closer!!!

Gorilla bum. They were really aware that we were watching, but not afraid, but definitely put on a bit of a show!

See how close they are? They had a minor scuffle near the glass, and one of them went flying,but it just seems they do that. Eat... eyeball each other... run at each other... scuffle (or flee)... decide that all's well... eat

Some cute monkeys. The entwine their tails with their babies. :)

Baby hippo! Just chilling.

Meekat manor!

Lioness head. Everynow and then she'd crack an eyelid and a kid'd screech "mommy, the lion's looking at me". Needless to say, though she was a beautiful creature, it must be soundproof glass, because we couldn't stand that noie for 5 minutes, but she lay there for hours.

Us walking back from Lincoln Park Zoo... pretty nice view of the city. And we only walked back because there were no cabs there (most people drive) and we had no idea how to call one. My poor poor leggies!

But we had a half-time at Navy Pier again, and had a Chicago Dog! So many flavours! It's a hotdog sausage, tomato, a gigantic pickle, celery salt, relish and some other kind of pickled chillis (which were HOT). I could eat one every day...

Next stop... Washington DC! And apologies for the long post... we were there for 5 days, and anyone who is considering a holiday to Chicago? DO. It's fantastic. :)