The Windy, Chilly, City

   Chicago was a bit of a shock for us, temperature-wise.  While we did bring some winterish clothes most of them were stashed in the auxiliary or in the bottom of our backpacks, just stepping out of Frida in the driveway sent had us shivering in our thin sweatshirts and long sleeves.  Maria, our host and another friend of Iris’s from NMH,was kind and accommodating of our late arrival, and relatively last minute plan to visit Chi-Town.

   Once inside and warmer, we chatted it up with Maria about her studies, her brothers and the bowling league she recently joined.  She and Iris could not resist reminiscing about NMH just a little bit (the joys of our old email system, SWIS!) while Chelsea and Zach marveled at her mother’s substantial collections, the most prominent and impressive to us being her DVD collection.  With so many movies at our disposal we decided it might be a good chance to take in a film.  When selecting from a collection comparable to a rental store, finding common ground and not getting lost in the choices was a challenge, but ultimately we decided on Gone Baby Gone, set in our familiar Boston.

The next day we bundled up and ventured into the cold, leaving Frida to relax in the suburbs we took the train into the city.  Chicago was the first city in a while that we did not whip around town on our bikes, so pedestrians once more, we explored this new-to-us city the slow way.  We spent the better part of the day inside “the loop” of the elevated train in the center of the city.  We were delighted to find, without much effort, a good deal of things to do  for free.  The Millennium park offered us a wealth of visual stimulation in the form of outdoor sculptures and gardens. “It’s like an outdoor art museum” Chels remarked, and indeed it was, we all found something to amuse ourselves.  Including Chinese sculptures, the oversaturated reflective “bean”, the face-fountains, beautiful sprawling gardens and an outdoor pavilion that makes the hatch shell look like a puppet theater.  

   When we could take the wind and the cold no longer, we crossed the street from the park and sought out the Chicago Cultural Center.  We were astounded by how much the cultural center had to offer, several exhibits, in particular we drawn to the Barbara Crane 60 year photography retrospective and the Project Onward open studios.   Later we stopped into the Lego Store, where Zach was like a vegan in a vegan candy store.  We made lego people of the three of us…look for them in future photos!  Afterwards we grabbed some food and made our way over to Hydrate on Halstead street.  There we took in a fab drag/parody show: Annee Pocalypse and although they’ve got nothing on the professionalism of the Gold Dust Orphan productions we frequented in Boston, the writing and acting was hilarious!

   In order to catch the last train back to Itasca, we had to leave Halstead (and the dance party that was brewing in Hydrate) earlier than we would have liked, so we revisited the fun area the next morning.  You know you’re on Halstead street when you see the big, phallic, gay, beacons!   We then spent a delightful few hours poking around the costume shops (Chels  got a wig!) and eating at the famous Chicago Dinner.  Chicago was good to us, despite the cold, but it was time to move on for the sake of moving on, and so we made the short drive up to Madison!

the bean counter
miles traveled: 457
pieces of snail mail sent: 1
number of people wearing shorts/sandals/skirts or otherwise inappropriately dressed: 7
wedding photo shoots witnessed: 3
mullets: 0