Windy City!

Jeremie and I went to Chicago last weekend to visit our friends Ron and Jill. We had an amazing time, but I have been reluctant to blog the trip because I have to upload a bunch of pictures and it isn't any fun uploading pictures to this site! However, I have a ten page paper and a final that I am avoiding so now seems like the perfect time to waste on uploading a bunch of pictures!!! =)

First of all, if you haven't been to Chicago... YOU MUST GO!! It is an amazingly beautiful city and the skyline of Chicago is the most impressive that I have ever seen! Way more impressive than NYC.



Just a sample... It's almost impossible to get a shot of the full city because it is ridiculously huge!

Our first night there we went to a concert at Park West. We saw Diane Birch, who I had never heard of but our friends were huge fans of, and it was amazing. If you haven't heard of her, I definitely recommend! The venue was really cool. It reminded me of old style Vegas. It had a dance floor and tiered platforms covered with circular booths. Super cool.

This is the street that Ron and Jill live on...

I told you! BEAUTIFUL CITY!!

The next day we had breakfast at this ridiculously amazing joint called Nookies before heading off to the Shedd Aquarium.


You need to know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE fish! (To look at... NOT to eat!) So Aquariums have kind of become our thing when we visit a city that has one. We have been to the aquariums in Boston, Monterrey, and now Chicago.

Shedd Aquarium:




In order to get to the aquarium you have to walk through a lush park right on the shore of Lake Michigan. It is in a complex with the Field Museum and the Planetarium, but we only had time to hit the Shedd.

I won't bore you with a million pictures of fish (!!), I will just say that I could watch fish for hours on end and never get bored! Jeremie isn't the biggest fan of fish, but he is a very good sport because he knows how much I love them.

Here are some highlights:







This is outside the aquarium with a great shot of the city in the background!



The Shedd was amazing and you should check it out if you are in the city, but I wasn't as impressed as I was by the aquarium in Monterrey. That one blew my feeble mind!!

After the aquarium, we met up with Ron and Jill and had dinner at this amazing steakhouse called Wildfire. We went there last time we were in Chicago and it was just as good the second time!! Their steak is amazing... highly recommended if you are going to be in Chicago!



Next day we got up early to take a river/lake architecture tour. Unbelievable!! Jeremie and I were on the boat with 4 other people visiting from Germany and an elderly couple from the UK... oh, and 300 children!!! We had a really cool tour guide that kept apologizing that there were so many kids on the boat. It was clear that he loved his job, and despised children! The river portion took about 30 minutes and then we went out on the lake for about an hour.

Shots from the river:

This building is curved to follow the bend of the river.


This is the Merchandise Mart building. It isn't very tall, but the building itself takes up two entire city blocks!!


The mack daddy of them all... The Sears Tower!!

Ok... they actually changed the name to the Willis Tower, but that sounds stupid and I refuse to call it that! IT'S THE SEARS TOWER FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!

So, in the late 1800's they actually reversed the flow of the Chicago River because it was full of garbage and poop and the city had quite the reputation for smelling awful. Originally, the river flowed into Lake Michigan, but after the reversal, Lake Michigan fed the waters of the river instead. Total side note... the Chicago River is the only river that has been reversed and STAYED reversed... we learned that on the tour. So, Canada was freaking out a bit because they thought that this reversal was going to drain all of the water from Lake Michigan so they sued the city of Chicago and actually won. Now in order to enter the lake from the river you have to go through a lock. The lock blocks the flow so that the only time water from Lake Michigan enters the river is when the lock is opened.

The lock takes a bit of time because the water level of the lake is actually two feet higher than that of the river. You enter the lock, the "back door" closes and they open the front door and you wait as the boat rises to the level of the lake! Pretty cool, huh?!

This is the opening of the lock letting water in.

We were hoping that we would be able to escape the AZ heat on this trip and technically we did. It never got above 87 degrees while we were there, but it was very HUMID so it was stuffy and miserable a lot of the time that we were there. Our tour guide tried to tell us that there was no such thing as a "dry" heat, but he was a really nice guy so I didn't want to insult him and tell him that he was an idiot. Any two year old that has lived in AZ and then visited a humid state could tell him how wrong he was!!!!

I mention the heat because when we got onto the lake... it all went away!!! There was a cool breeze constantly blowing and our hour on the lake was simply divine!!


This was taken on the boat as we were entering the lake. (Does this city make me look fat??!)

Shots from the lake:

Navy Pier


This is a great shot of the Hancock tower. This is at the edge of the city. The picture makes the Hancock look like the tallest building EVER, but it is actually only the 4th tallest building in Chicago! (Remember.. birthplace of the skyscraper!)



This is a working lighthouse on the lake. It is built on a breaker that prevents the tide from eroding the shoreline. You used to be able to live there rent free as long as you agreed to operate the lighthouse. =)




After the tour we stopped by the old Marshall Fields (now sadly just a Macy's) and had lunch at the world famous Walnut room on the 7th floor of the store. The Walnut Room is over 100 years old and was the first resteraunt to be located in a department store.

What I love about the Walnut Room is that it looks completely pretentious and shi-shi (sp?), but their most famous menu item is the chicken pot pie which we gladly indulged in. Another Chicago MUST!!

It is luscious goodness. Kind of like Disneyland in your mouth!!

After lunch we walked through Grant Park (I think, either that or Lincoln, or something like that, can't remember for sure.. there are a bunch of parks lakeside and they call kind of look the same.) This is a supercool outdoor concert venue:



We then walked on this metal hotplate oven over to my favorite part of the trip... THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO!!!!!




When Jeremie asked me what the one thing I wanted to do in Chicago was, my answer was to go to the Art Institute because I wanted to see the very famous painting "Sunday in the Park at Grand Jette" by George Sarrat (sp?). I LOVE this painting for two reasons:

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of my favorite movies and, if you will remember, they go to an art museum and Cameron stares at a large painting as the camera moves in closer and closer and closer on it. THAT it the painting.

2. It is also the inspiration for the musical Sunday in the Park with George by the master Stephen Sondheim. The painting is recreated on stage with live actors. The show is actually more about the artist, art and commerce, etc. but that is a story for another blog post!!

Here it is!!


The most amazing thing about this picture is that Sarrat painted it using tiny dots of different colors to create the whole. I used the picture with me in it to give you an idea of how large the painting actually is and I took some close up shots to give you an idea of the billions of dots on this thang!!





I must admit that I am kind of an art retard and I had NO IDEA how many iconic works are held by the Art Institute!! It was unbelievable!


That's THE "Water Lillies" by Monet!



That's THE "Self Portrait" by Van Gogh!!



"American Gothic" for Pete's Sake!!!

Like I said... iconic. Funny story about American Gothic... I was taking the picture while Jeremie was frantically uterring, "the children are coming!!" I didn't think anything of it until I turned around to see about 500 children in blue shirts piling up in front of American Gothic to take pictures. It was terrifying!! Luckily the Art Institute is HUGE so we never saw them again!!

As stated above... I am an art retard. I had heard of Reniour, but I wouldn't have been able to point out a painting of his in a line up. I kind of fell in love at Institute and here is why:



The photo doesn't do it justice. When you see this painting in person the reds and blues are so vivid they actually made me gasp!

It is really weird taking pictures of priceless art.. but I wanted something to commemorate the experience without buying a bunch of prints at the gift shop. I could have stayed in there for days!!!! Here are some other highlights:










Okay... I have to end here and post the rest later because I just noticed that there is water leaking under my floor enought to bow the laminate flooring and flood out of the crevices. It is really depressing because this is major and I don't even know where to begin. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!