Chicago
We visited Sam's brother Tom and his wife Jill in Chicago: locals are very proud of their city, its architecture, food, weather and arts scene. We wanted to see what all the fuss is about.
We had a great time with Tom and Jill, who took us around to see what Chicago has to offer in the way of architecture and gangster history and then relax in their rooftop hot tub for sunset drinks.
There are a bunch of good art galleries and museums, the two main ones being Field and the Art Institute. There's also some really great public artworks around the city.
One of the really amazing and surprising finds though was street art - a huge 20m-long mosaic by Chagall of the Four Seasons.
We also saw a great Cirque du Soleil show Kurios while we were there, which was a bit like a steam-punk cabaret show with acrobats.
We got off the beaten track when after the gangster tour we tracked down one of Capone's old hangouts - the Green Mill. It still sports a green exterior (which was colour-code for "speakeasy" in the 1920s and 30s) and an art deco interior with permanently moody lighting, and while is normally a jazz club we were able to catch a poetry slam. It was really amazing with some new and experienced poets reading their work out with to improvised jazz music. They were personal and dramatic performances, which made the show very compelling and moving. It's been held at this venue every week since 1986.
Luckily we were in town for the first college football game of the season, which we expected to be a medium-size affair with a moderate crowd of family and friends clustered around an oval: we saw Northwestern wildcats tear apart some other team, but the crowd was so big and energetic, and everything was so slick that it felt like a national league of professionals, not students. This was even evident at the cheerleader-marching band show at half time, which they really seemed to take seriously and involved hundreds of people proudly performing in funny uniforms.
After NYC we were well into the swing of eating good fast food, and made sure to sample the Chicago greats: hot dogs,apparently invented in Chicago for the world's fair expo in 1893; deep dish pizza, which is basically fried dough shaped like a quiche or shallow pie crust that is filled with pizza toppings - we could only really eat one piece each comfortably. There are lots of popcorn places in Chicago, which all made the "Chicago mix" - american cheese (think twisties) and caramel. It sounds weird, and tastes really good for a few handfuls though is a super heavy and hard to finish a whole bag.
We also went to a bunch of trendy places with good healthy food, which was great if not iconically Chicago like deep dish pizza - however, at one place May was very excited to find chicken matza ball soup on the breakfast menu and credits her recovery from a cold to it.
We had a great time with Tom and Jill, who took us around to see what Chicago has to offer in the way of architecture and gangster history and then relax in their rooftop hot tub for sunset drinks.
There are a bunch of good art galleries and museums, the two main ones being Field and the Art Institute. There's also some really great public artworks around the city.
One of the really amazing and surprising finds though was street art - a huge 20m-long mosaic by Chagall of the Four Seasons.
We also saw a great Cirque du Soleil show Kurios while we were there, which was a bit like a steam-punk cabaret show with acrobats.
We got off the beaten track when after the gangster tour we tracked down one of Capone's old hangouts - the Green Mill. It still sports a green exterior (which was colour-code for "speakeasy" in the 1920s and 30s) and an art deco interior with permanently moody lighting, and while is normally a jazz club we were able to catch a poetry slam. It was really amazing with some new and experienced poets reading their work out with to improvised jazz music. They were personal and dramatic performances, which made the show very compelling and moving. It's been held at this venue every week since 1986.
Luckily we were in town for the first college football game of the season, which we expected to be a medium-size affair with a moderate crowd of family and friends clustered around an oval: we saw Northwestern wildcats tear apart some other team, but the crowd was so big and energetic, and everything was so slick that it felt like a national league of professionals, not students. This was even evident at the cheerleader-marching band show at half time, which they really seemed to take seriously and involved hundreds of people proudly performing in funny uniforms.
After NYC we were well into the swing of eating good fast food, and made sure to sample the Chicago greats: hot dogs,apparently invented in Chicago for the world's fair expo in 1893; deep dish pizza, which is basically fried dough shaped like a quiche or shallow pie crust that is filled with pizza toppings - we could only really eat one piece each comfortably. There are lots of popcorn places in Chicago, which all made the "Chicago mix" - american cheese (think twisties) and caramel. It sounds weird, and tastes really good for a few handfuls though is a super heavy and hard to finish a whole bag.
We also went to a bunch of trendy places with good healthy food, which was great if not iconically Chicago like deep dish pizza - however, at one place May was very excited to find chicken matza ball soup on the breakfast menu and credits her recovery from a cold to it.
posted by sam at 5:44 PM
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