Chicago weekend: a reunion, a get-together, and a city revisited
Jun 14th, 2013, 04:49 PM
#1
Original Poster
Chicago weekend: a reunion, a get-together, and a city revisited
Last weekend I went to Chicago for my fortieth college reunion. It had been ten years since my last trip to Chicago, when I attended my thirtieth reunion, and ten more years since the visit before that one.
Coincidentally, some people from Fodor's were planning a get-together in Chicago last weekend, arriving from points near and far. And as a further coincidence, a friend of mine from home in Massachusetts was attending a conference in Chicago that began on Sunday. So I arrive at O'Hare around 11:00 AM on Thursday, June 6 in a cold rain with a very full agenda.
I take a shared shuttle to my hotel from the airport using GO Airport Express. http://www.airportexpress.com/
I have not booked in advance but I go to the desk in the terminal, pay $32, and am showed to a van that is leaving shortly. As we head down the highway, I see a somewhat puzzling sign giving travel times. It says that the express lanes are a forty minute drive in to Chicago and the local lanes are thirty minutes. The driver chooses the express lane anyway. Big mistake. Near the end of the ride, he comments that the express lane wasn't very express today, and I tell him about the sign I had seen. He says he had seen it too but that in his mind he had reversed the times, as they didn't make sense to him. Oh well.
I am staying at the Radisson Blu Aqua hotel with a group rate for my reunion. This is located in a section of downtown Chicago which simply did not exist when I lived there. Signs say it is Chicago's new east side. I can not even picture what it used to look like, but I believe it was mostly railroad yards and waste land. It is near the very attractive Millennium Park, also built on railroad land, which also did not exist.
The hotel is so advanced in its design and its technology that I ride up and down the elevator a few times before I figure out (with the help of two amused men who eventually get on the elevator or I'd still be going up and down) how to swipe my room key so that the elevator will stop at my floor. It takes me a while to figure out how to turn the lights on and off in my room, and I never do quite get the knack of getting them to come on or go off on the first try.
When I walk into the bathroom the first time, I don't see the toilet, so I go out to see if it is in its own room somewhere. Turns out it is hiding behind a sliding glass door that opens to the shower and to the toilet, but not simultaneously. And I never do figure out how to use the hand held shower attachment hanging on the wall next to the rainfall shower head. At least that's what I think it is.
After a quick lunch in the hotel bar, I head off to the Field Museum. I am to meet some people from the Fodor's get-together there, but first I go through some of the exhibits on my own. I haven't been in the Field Museum in over forty years. One of my college friends remembers going there and seeing cockroaches in the basement with the mummies. It has been spruced up considerably since then. I walk through the wonderful exhibit on the Ancient Americas, what a collection!
When it is time to meet the others, I walk out to the totem pole that stands outside the North entrance to the museum. Nobody else is standing there, so I text Hershey, with whom I have exchanged a few e-mails about the gathering, and ask if everyone has already gone inside. A minute or two later, a smiling woman I have never seen walks out of the museum as I am coming up the stairs and gives me a big hug. It is Hershey, who has been confused about the meeting place, which had been described as a "big beaver totem pole". It was not obvious that this totem pole represented a beaver, and she had wondered if there was another one somewhere and whether she was in the right place, as nobody else was there. So we are happy to have found each other.
We are eventually joined by PhillyFan and elberko, each of whom seems to have had something of an adventure getting to the museum. Elberko and I tour the special exhibit of the Lascaux cave paintings. I have been fascinated by these ever since I was a child and read about the boys who discovered the paintings in a cave in France by accident. This exhibit has replicas of some of the paintings on a recreated cavelike surface. I sit and contemplate them for some time. I have visited some of the French caves with prehistoric art. Lascaux is closed to visitors however, and I have not visited the replica that has been opened near the original cave in the Dordogne.
After this we split up and I head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. I am meeting some college friends, including a dear friend with whom I have lost contact for decades. He lives in Chicago and is driving us all to the restaurant. When he arrives at the hotel we just keep hugging each other. It is beyond wonderful to see everyone.
We have dinner at Kiki's Bistro. http://www.kikisbistro.com/ This is a nice French restaurant in the River North area. I enjoy my meal quite a bit. When we are leaving, my friend says he sees a rabbit. "Are you sure it's not a rat?" I ask. Then I see it too, it's hopping, it's definitely a rabbit. Time for bed.
Coincidentally, some people from Fodor's were planning a get-together in Chicago last weekend, arriving from points near and far. And as a further coincidence, a friend of mine from home in Massachusetts was attending a conference in Chicago that began on Sunday. So I arrive at O'Hare around 11:00 AM on Thursday, June 6 in a cold rain with a very full agenda.
I take a shared shuttle to my hotel from the airport using GO Airport Express. http://www.airportexpress.com/
I have not booked in advance but I go to the desk in the terminal, pay $32, and am showed to a van that is leaving shortly. As we head down the highway, I see a somewhat puzzling sign giving travel times. It says that the express lanes are a forty minute drive in to Chicago and the local lanes are thirty minutes. The driver chooses the express lane anyway. Big mistake. Near the end of the ride, he comments that the express lane wasn't very express today, and I tell him about the sign I had seen. He says he had seen it too but that in his mind he had reversed the times, as they didn't make sense to him. Oh well.
I am staying at the Radisson Blu Aqua hotel with a group rate for my reunion. This is located in a section of downtown Chicago which simply did not exist when I lived there. Signs say it is Chicago's new east side. I can not even picture what it used to look like, but I believe it was mostly railroad yards and waste land. It is near the very attractive Millennium Park, also built on railroad land, which also did not exist.
The hotel is so advanced in its design and its technology that I ride up and down the elevator a few times before I figure out (with the help of two amused men who eventually get on the elevator or I'd still be going up and down) how to swipe my room key so that the elevator will stop at my floor. It takes me a while to figure out how to turn the lights on and off in my room, and I never do quite get the knack of getting them to come on or go off on the first try.
When I walk into the bathroom the first time, I don't see the toilet, so I go out to see if it is in its own room somewhere. Turns out it is hiding behind a sliding glass door that opens to the shower and to the toilet, but not simultaneously. And I never do figure out how to use the hand held shower attachment hanging on the wall next to the rainfall shower head. At least that's what I think it is.
After a quick lunch in the hotel bar, I head off to the Field Museum. I am to meet some people from the Fodor's get-together there, but first I go through some of the exhibits on my own. I haven't been in the Field Museum in over forty years. One of my college friends remembers going there and seeing cockroaches in the basement with the mummies. It has been spruced up considerably since then. I walk through the wonderful exhibit on the Ancient Americas, what a collection!
When it is time to meet the others, I walk out to the totem pole that stands outside the North entrance to the museum. Nobody else is standing there, so I text Hershey, with whom I have exchanged a few e-mails about the gathering, and ask if everyone has already gone inside. A minute or two later, a smiling woman I have never seen walks out of the museum as I am coming up the stairs and gives me a big hug. It is Hershey, who has been confused about the meeting place, which had been described as a "big beaver totem pole". It was not obvious that this totem pole represented a beaver, and she had wondered if there was another one somewhere and whether she was in the right place, as nobody else was there. So we are happy to have found each other.
We are eventually joined by PhillyFan and elberko, each of whom seems to have had something of an adventure getting to the museum. Elberko and I tour the special exhibit of the Lascaux cave paintings. I have been fascinated by these ever since I was a child and read about the boys who discovered the paintings in a cave in France by accident. This exhibit has replicas of some of the paintings on a recreated cavelike surface. I sit and contemplate them for some time. I have visited some of the French caves with prehistoric art. Lascaux is closed to visitors however, and I have not visited the replica that has been opened near the original cave in the Dordogne.
After this we split up and I head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. I am meeting some college friends, including a dear friend with whom I have lost contact for decades. He lives in Chicago and is driving us all to the restaurant. When he arrives at the hotel we just keep hugging each other. It is beyond wonderful to see everyone.
We have dinner at Kiki's Bistro. http://www.kikisbistro.com/ This is a nice French restaurant in the River North area. I enjoy my meal quite a bit. When we are leaving, my friend says he sees a rabbit. "Are you sure it's not a rat?" I ask. Then I see it too, it's hopping, it's definitely a rabbit. Time for bed.
Jun 14th, 2013, 04:51 PM
#2
Original Poster
Jun 14th, 2013, 06:46 PM
#4
Original Poster
Friday morning I have breakfast with my college friend Ellen and her husband, who are staying at the hotel with me. We eat at Wildberry Pancakes and Cafe on Randolph Street, near the hotel. Very nice breakfasts, we come here several times during our stay. http://www.wildberrycafe.com/
After breakfast we take a shuttle to the campus of the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, on the south side. There are classes and programs for alumni throughout the day. I only go to one of the classes, a terrific lecture on the Chicago blues by an anthropology professor. The soundtrack to my college years is the Chicago blues, and the class is filled with enthusiastic fans. The class is scheduled for an hour; after an hour and a half someone comes in and tells us apologetically that we will have to leave because there are actual students waiting to come into the room for an actual class. We are all jealous.
I wander over to the Oriental Institute, a museum of ancient middle eastern artifacts on the campus. I didn't visit this place nearly enough during my four years here. I walked past it every day but I wasn't ready to appreciate it. I am fascinated now, though, and it is an astonishingly interesting place. I think about how many other resources here I squandered, how much better use I might make of my time if I were a student today instead of over forty years ago.
And then I go to the beer garden, which has been set up in a tent and where I meet my friends and spend the rest of the afternoon talking, laughing, and taking pictures. On second thought, I might not have changed that much after all.
Our class dinner is held in the Robie House, a Frank Lloyd Wright house that is owned by the university. My dorm was across the street. It has been torn down and the new business school has gone up on the spot. But for one year, the view out of my dorm window was the Robie House. Some members of my class are remembering that when the student body took to the streets after the shootings at Kent State during our first year in college, a number of students from our dorm went into Robie House to protect it against angry protestors (at the time it housed the Adlai Stevenson Institute for International Affairs, and was a target of some anti-war protests).
I talk to a lot of people. There are some who remember me but I don't remember them. There are others whom I vaguely remember but never really knew; after talking to them now, I wish I had known them better. And who are these good looking guys who come up and hug me and say, "Hi Nikki"? Do I know them? How did I miss them?
I live in a bubble.
After breakfast we take a shuttle to the campus of the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, on the south side. There are classes and programs for alumni throughout the day. I only go to one of the classes, a terrific lecture on the Chicago blues by an anthropology professor. The soundtrack to my college years is the Chicago blues, and the class is filled with enthusiastic fans. The class is scheduled for an hour; after an hour and a half someone comes in and tells us apologetically that we will have to leave because there are actual students waiting to come into the room for an actual class. We are all jealous.
I wander over to the Oriental Institute, a museum of ancient middle eastern artifacts on the campus. I didn't visit this place nearly enough during my four years here. I walked past it every day but I wasn't ready to appreciate it. I am fascinated now, though, and it is an astonishingly interesting place. I think about how many other resources here I squandered, how much better use I might make of my time if I were a student today instead of over forty years ago.
And then I go to the beer garden, which has been set up in a tent and where I meet my friends and spend the rest of the afternoon talking, laughing, and taking pictures. On second thought, I might not have changed that much after all.
Our class dinner is held in the Robie House, a Frank Lloyd Wright house that is owned by the university. My dorm was across the street. It has been torn down and the new business school has gone up on the spot. But for one year, the view out of my dorm window was the Robie House. Some members of my class are remembering that when the student body took to the streets after the shootings at Kent State during our first year in college, a number of students from our dorm went into Robie House to protect it against angry protestors (at the time it housed the Adlai Stevenson Institute for International Affairs, and was a target of some anti-war protests).
I talk to a lot of people. There are some who remember me but I don't remember them. There are others whom I vaguely remember but never really knew; after talking to them now, I wish I had known them better. And who are these good looking guys who come up and hug me and say, "Hi Nikki"? Do I know them? How did I miss them?
I live in a bubble.
Jun 15th, 2013, 12:24 AM
#6
Original Poster
Saturday morning after breakfast with my friends at Wildberry, I walk into Millennium Park. Built on former railroad land over an underground parking lot, this is a stunning public space. There is an outdoor concert pavilion that at first glance appears to be an enormous work of art, with a grid of tubing arching over the entire lawn that supports the sound system. There are dozens of people spread out on the lawn doing yoga.
I am meeting a group from Fodor's at the shiny curved sculpture Cloud Gate, known colloquially as "the bean". In addition to the three people I met yesterday, I recognize one poster, Toucan2, who had dinner with me in Paris last year at another Fodor's get-together. We are joined by several more folks I have never met, and it is a festive gathering. We pose for pictures reflected in the bean. One obligatory shot is under the sculpture, where you can touch the surface and appear to be holding up your reflection at an impossible angle. I'm thinking this will be like the compulsory photo in Pisa where everybody is holding up the leaning tower.
After a dozen cameras have taken all our pictures, we walk through the Lurie Garden, which is planted with native perennials. The effect of the prairie flowers against the backdrop of the buildings on Michigan Avenue is dramatic, a wonderful urban landscape.
Our path takes us to the far end of the lawn for the concert pavilion, where an energetic woman is now leading a large crowd on the lawn in Zumba. Somebody suggests we all join in, and suddenly I find myself in a group of gyrating Fodorites in front of a merciless video camera. One of these people is a very fit looking former cheerleader. I am not. Thankfully I have not seen the video, and I can only hope that nobody else has either.
As we approach the Art Institute on the park's southern border with a little over an hour before our lunch reservation, we split up.
I go into the Art Institute, entering through the Modern Wing, which opened in 2009. I spend an hour wandering through the galleries of modern and contemporary art, tagging along for a while listening to a tour but letting them get ahead of me as I linger. There is a great view from the glass wall over Millennium Park and the area North of it where my hotel is located. All of it, the museum, park, and neighborhood are completely new. From this vantage point the city of Chicago is unrecognizable as the place I knew forty years ago or even at my last visit ten years ago.
At 11:30 I meet the rest of the group at Terzo Piano, the restaurant on the third floor (hence the name) of the Modern Wing. This gives us a chance to talk and get to know each other. I am seated next to Challiman, who gives me tips about Scotland, where she has recently traveled and where I am headed in August.
Food is excellent. I have a great salad with arugula, smoked steelhead trout, picholine olives, and fingerling potatoes but am coveting a slice of the clam flatbread with house-cured aleppo bacon, marjoram butter, roasted garlic, Calabrian chilis and parmesan ordered by amwosu's son, who is sitting next to me. He generously shares a piece with me, and it is terrific.
After lunch, the group splits up again and I say good-bye. Some are headed into the museum. I would like to see the Impressionists, a collection I visited many times in my youth, but it is a beautiful day, and I have decided not to return to the museum. I will not be able to join the group at the evening's big gathering for Chicago style pizza, and I am sorry I will not get to see the people who will be there but who haven't joined us yet. That group includes a couple I have met before and would have really enjoyed seeing again, and one or two whose postings I have been reading for years. But I'm learning you can't do everything, and you can't see everything, and you can't have been everyone's friend in college. See, education is a life long process, I am still learning
I am meeting a group from Fodor's at the shiny curved sculpture Cloud Gate, known colloquially as "the bean". In addition to the three people I met yesterday, I recognize one poster, Toucan2, who had dinner with me in Paris last year at another Fodor's get-together. We are joined by several more folks I have never met, and it is a festive gathering. We pose for pictures reflected in the bean. One obligatory shot is under the sculpture, where you can touch the surface and appear to be holding up your reflection at an impossible angle. I'm thinking this will be like the compulsory photo in Pisa where everybody is holding up the leaning tower.
After a dozen cameras have taken all our pictures, we walk through the Lurie Garden, which is planted with native perennials. The effect of the prairie flowers against the backdrop of the buildings on Michigan Avenue is dramatic, a wonderful urban landscape.
Our path takes us to the far end of the lawn for the concert pavilion, where an energetic woman is now leading a large crowd on the lawn in Zumba. Somebody suggests we all join in, and suddenly I find myself in a group of gyrating Fodorites in front of a merciless video camera. One of these people is a very fit looking former cheerleader. I am not. Thankfully I have not seen the video, and I can only hope that nobody else has either.
As we approach the Art Institute on the park's southern border with a little over an hour before our lunch reservation, we split up.
I go into the Art Institute, entering through the Modern Wing, which opened in 2009. I spend an hour wandering through the galleries of modern and contemporary art, tagging along for a while listening to a tour but letting them get ahead of me as I linger. There is a great view from the glass wall over Millennium Park and the area North of it where my hotel is located. All of it, the museum, park, and neighborhood are completely new. From this vantage point the city of Chicago is unrecognizable as the place I knew forty years ago or even at my last visit ten years ago.
At 11:30 I meet the rest of the group at Terzo Piano, the restaurant on the third floor (hence the name) of the Modern Wing. This gives us a chance to talk and get to know each other. I am seated next to Challiman, who gives me tips about Scotland, where she has recently traveled and where I am headed in August.
Food is excellent. I have a great salad with arugula, smoked steelhead trout, picholine olives, and fingerling potatoes but am coveting a slice of the clam flatbread with house-cured aleppo bacon, marjoram butter, roasted garlic, Calabrian chilis and parmesan ordered by amwosu's son, who is sitting next to me. He generously shares a piece with me, and it is terrific.
After lunch, the group splits up again and I say good-bye. Some are headed into the museum. I would like to see the Impressionists, a collection I visited many times in my youth, but it is a beautiful day, and I have decided not to return to the museum. I will not be able to join the group at the evening's big gathering for Chicago style pizza, and I am sorry I will not get to see the people who will be there but who haven't joined us yet. That group includes a couple I have met before and would have really enjoyed seeing again, and one or two whose postings I have been reading for years. But I'm learning you can't do everything, and you can't see everything, and you can't have been everyone's friend in college. See, education is a life long process, I am still learning
Jun 15th, 2013, 01:25 PM
#9
Original Poster
After leaving the Art Institute, I walk down the block to Grant Park, where the Chicago Blues Festival has settled in for the weekend. Admission is free. A group is rehearsing on the main stage, which does not open until 5:00. I listen to them for a while, then wander through the park. There are several small stages scattered through the area, and groups are already performing on them. Most people have brought chairs with them and appeared to be settled in for the duration.
I find a seat on the curb in front of a stage called the Mississippi Juke Joint for an hour or so and listen to the Peterson Brothers Band and then Eddie Taylor Jr. before I get too hot and sunburned to stay there any longer. When the second band is setting up, the announcer asks if there are any guitar players in the audience who have a guitar with them. I don't know what they need it for, but the announcer says, "Maybe the guys in the band will sign it for you." Someone appears with a guitar and the problem is solved.
I stroll over to the stage called the Front Porch and hear another band in a shadier locale. After a couple of songs I walk back through the park, through Millennium Park again, and back to my hotel.
I take a shuttle bus back to the campus for this evening's reunion activity, a party in two venues for all of the returning alumni. For the first part of the evening, there are appetizers, dinner entrees, and drinks. A band is playing, and I find myself dancing with six women who lived in my dorm my first year in college, 44 years ago. This is a particularly joyous moment for me because two years ago, before my two knee replacements, I could not dance at all. We figure they are playing oldies because we, the old folks, will have to leave early to go to bed. And pretty much, we are right. After 9:30, the admission price is reduced, the food is taken away, and there are just drinks and desserts.
Suddenly everything has changed. Young people are flooding into the building. The music is different. Is it even music? We figure now that we are done with the early bird special, it must be time to leave. Everybody looks like our kids. Some of them in fact are our kids, children of my dorm mates who are here celebrating their fifth reunion. We give them all our drink tickets and are very popular among their friends.
But the night is not over. Across the street, a tent has been set up with a blues band playing. Sam Lay is playing guitar and singing, just as he used to do when we would dance to blues bands in the street. None of the young people are in here, they don't know what they're missing. It's a great party.
On the shuttle bus back to the hotel, we sit behind two men who are celebrating their fiftieth reunion. I hear one tell the other that even though they seldom see each other, he still knows what the other is thinking, they can still finish each other's sentences. He turns around and asks what we thought of the reunion. I tell him I heard what he said and I feel the same way about the people I knew in college, I still feel incredibly close to them even if I haven't seen them in decades. He then tells me his life story. This happens wherever I go.
I find a seat on the curb in front of a stage called the Mississippi Juke Joint for an hour or so and listen to the Peterson Brothers Band and then Eddie Taylor Jr. before I get too hot and sunburned to stay there any longer. When the second band is setting up, the announcer asks if there are any guitar players in the audience who have a guitar with them. I don't know what they need it for, but the announcer says, "Maybe the guys in the band will sign it for you." Someone appears with a guitar and the problem is solved.
I stroll over to the stage called the Front Porch and hear another band in a shadier locale. After a couple of songs I walk back through the park, through Millennium Park again, and back to my hotel.
I take a shuttle bus back to the campus for this evening's reunion activity, a party in two venues for all of the returning alumni. For the first part of the evening, there are appetizers, dinner entrees, and drinks. A band is playing, and I find myself dancing with six women who lived in my dorm my first year in college, 44 years ago. This is a particularly joyous moment for me because two years ago, before my two knee replacements, I could not dance at all. We figure they are playing oldies because we, the old folks, will have to leave early to go to bed. And pretty much, we are right. After 9:30, the admission price is reduced, the food is taken away, and there are just drinks and desserts.
Suddenly everything has changed. Young people are flooding into the building. The music is different. Is it even music? We figure now that we are done with the early bird special, it must be time to leave. Everybody looks like our kids. Some of them in fact are our kids, children of my dorm mates who are here celebrating their fifth reunion. We give them all our drink tickets and are very popular among their friends.
But the night is not over. Across the street, a tent has been set up with a blues band playing. Sam Lay is playing guitar and singing, just as he used to do when we would dance to blues bands in the street. None of the young people are in here, they don't know what they're missing. It's a great party.
On the shuttle bus back to the hotel, we sit behind two men who are celebrating their fiftieth reunion. I hear one tell the other that even though they seldom see each other, he still knows what the other is thinking, they can still finish each other's sentences. He turns around and asks what we thought of the reunion. I tell him I heard what he said and I feel the same way about the people I knew in college, I still feel incredibly close to them even if I haven't seen them in decades. He then tells me his life story. This happens wherever I go.
Jun 15th, 2013, 02:39 PM
#10
Original Poster
My friend Ellen and her husband have arranged to meet their son, his wife, and their adorable toddler for brunch on Sunday at the Bongo Room on South Wabash Avenue. When we get there, we are told there is a wait of around 45 minutes. We sit at the outdoor terrace of a cafe next door, the Artist's Cafe. http://www.artists-cafe.com/ I can not wait that long for brunch as I am meeting my friend Susan at Wrigley Field for a game that starts in an hour. So while my friends all sit with me on the terrace, I go in and order breakfast. It is brought out to our table and is actually really good, and probably half the price of the meal at the trendy place with the line to get in next door. I can not report on the meal at the Bongo Room, but I am told that Ellen and her family enjoyed it.
I leave a few minutes after Ellen's table is ready next door, and I get to Wrigley Field just as they are singing God Bless America. My mother grew up in Chicago. She used to change buses at Wrigley Field on her way to school. She told me I had to get a hot dog from the guy on the corner, that she'd get one from him all the time. My mother is 87 years old. I pointed out to her that the guy was probably not there any more. Nonetheless, I take a quick look around on my way into the stadium.
I meet Susan at our seats. There had been predictions of thunderstorms this afternoon, and I have brought an umbrella just in case. Susan has brought one too, and it works. The day stays sunny and beautiful, the Cubs beat the Pirates, and it is a perfect day at the ball park. I do end up getting a hot dog in my mother's honor. And maybe a pretzel too.
During the seventh inning stretch, the announcer sings Take Me Out to the Ball Game. He has probably been doing this for a very long time. The crowd joins in. Cubs fans are very tolerant. They have to be.
I have been worried that it will be hard to get a bus or taxi after the game, and we are on a pretty tight schedule. But I find the bus stop right outside the door and there is a very short line. A woman on line with us uses her phone to find out when the next bus is coming, and tells us one will be along in eight minutes. This strikes me as a great innovation, but I don't bother finding out how it is done, as I am leaving Chicago tomorrow. The bus is not nearly as crowded as I have feared, we both get seats, and we get off near our next destination.
We have dinner reservations at Bistrot Margot, on North Wells Avenue in Old Town. http://www.bistrotmargot.com/ The street is filled with people and booths; there is an art and craft show going on. We are asked for a donation as we walk onto the block, but I tell them we are just going to the restaurant. We walk through the increasingly crowded street. Many people are strolling about drinking beer.
I think about the various Chicago landscapes I have encountered this weekend and reflect that if someone were making a movie about Chicago, they could have followed me around for four days and gotten enough iconic atmospheric footage to piece together a pretty nice montage. There is certainly a lot going on this weekend, and apart from the cold rain when I landed on Thursday, the weather has been wonderful. I remember these wonderful spring days in Chicago; they are a rare gift.
When I was in college I wrote a poem about life in Chicago. The first line was "living in a black and white photograph". There are many gray days. I distinctly remember one day when I was sitting in the library next to a window during the study week before exams and papers were due. The sun came out. People gravitated to the window and just stared at the sun. They didn't have to stay long. It went away again and everybody got back to work. This is what most Chicago days are like, only without the glimpse of the sun.
We find the restaurant. The street side is entirely open to the outdoor patio, and we have a table just inside, so we have a good view of all the activity on the street. A woman at the next table is contemptuous of this art fair. She says it is a ripoff of a better art fair taking place a couple of blocks away that charges the same entrance fee. I wish we had time to look at one or both of them, but you can't do everything.
The food is good and portions are copious. I have a very nice salad of field greens with grilled pears, pistachios, bleu cheese, and cranberries, followed by a half roasted duck with sauce bigarade. I have to leave quite a bit of it; the hot dog (and the maybe pretzel) at the ball park probably had something to do with that.
We have tickets to a 7:00 show at Second City, just down the street. We make our way through the increasingly dense (and increasingly inebriated) crowd at the art fair and get there in time to get very good seats at a table on the center aisle with our general admission tickets. It is recommended that people arrive between 30 and 45 minutes before the show for good seats. There are reserved seats for ten dollars more, and I had tried to get those, but they were sold out for our performance. Tickets are a reasonable $23 plus service charge, and with a running time of about three hours, the price per minute is a great bargain. http://www.secondcity.com/
Second City shows two simultaneous productions in two theaters in the same building. We are seeing "Let Them Eat Chaos" in the older and larger of the two rooms. There are two acts of mostly scripted sketches lasting about an hour apiece, then a third act of improv, also lasting about an hour. The six members of the troupe really work for those three hours. I don't know about them, but I am getting pretty tired. Not too tired to laugh at the very funny sketches. One is a hilarious take on the paleo diet, set in a cafe where all the fare is "human products" starting with breast milk and moving on to much less appetizing concoctions, all provided by a harried employee. Well, now that I think of it, he couldn't have provided that first one, well, whatever.
By the time the show is over, I am really ready to call it a day. We have no trouble hailing a taxi outside the theater. The art fair down the street still appears to be in full swing, at least there are plenty of people in the street. I drop Susan off at her hotel, make it into mine, and manage to turn off the light after a couple of tries and get to sleep.
I leave a few minutes after Ellen's table is ready next door, and I get to Wrigley Field just as they are singing God Bless America. My mother grew up in Chicago. She used to change buses at Wrigley Field on her way to school. She told me I had to get a hot dog from the guy on the corner, that she'd get one from him all the time. My mother is 87 years old. I pointed out to her that the guy was probably not there any more. Nonetheless, I take a quick look around on my way into the stadium.
I meet Susan at our seats. There had been predictions of thunderstorms this afternoon, and I have brought an umbrella just in case. Susan has brought one too, and it works. The day stays sunny and beautiful, the Cubs beat the Pirates, and it is a perfect day at the ball park. I do end up getting a hot dog in my mother's honor. And maybe a pretzel too.
During the seventh inning stretch, the announcer sings Take Me Out to the Ball Game. He has probably been doing this for a very long time. The crowd joins in. Cubs fans are very tolerant. They have to be.
I have been worried that it will be hard to get a bus or taxi after the game, and we are on a pretty tight schedule. But I find the bus stop right outside the door and there is a very short line. A woman on line with us uses her phone to find out when the next bus is coming, and tells us one will be along in eight minutes. This strikes me as a great innovation, but I don't bother finding out how it is done, as I am leaving Chicago tomorrow. The bus is not nearly as crowded as I have feared, we both get seats, and we get off near our next destination.
We have dinner reservations at Bistrot Margot, on North Wells Avenue in Old Town. http://www.bistrotmargot.com/ The street is filled with people and booths; there is an art and craft show going on. We are asked for a donation as we walk onto the block, but I tell them we are just going to the restaurant. We walk through the increasingly crowded street. Many people are strolling about drinking beer.
I think about the various Chicago landscapes I have encountered this weekend and reflect that if someone were making a movie about Chicago, they could have followed me around for four days and gotten enough iconic atmospheric footage to piece together a pretty nice montage. There is certainly a lot going on this weekend, and apart from the cold rain when I landed on Thursday, the weather has been wonderful. I remember these wonderful spring days in Chicago; they are a rare gift.
When I was in college I wrote a poem about life in Chicago. The first line was "living in a black and white photograph". There are many gray days. I distinctly remember one day when I was sitting in the library next to a window during the study week before exams and papers were due. The sun came out. People gravitated to the window and just stared at the sun. They didn't have to stay long. It went away again and everybody got back to work. This is what most Chicago days are like, only without the glimpse of the sun.
We find the restaurant. The street side is entirely open to the outdoor patio, and we have a table just inside, so we have a good view of all the activity on the street. A woman at the next table is contemptuous of this art fair. She says it is a ripoff of a better art fair taking place a couple of blocks away that charges the same entrance fee. I wish we had time to look at one or both of them, but you can't do everything.
The food is good and portions are copious. I have a very nice salad of field greens with grilled pears, pistachios, bleu cheese, and cranberries, followed by a half roasted duck with sauce bigarade. I have to leave quite a bit of it; the hot dog (and the maybe pretzel) at the ball park probably had something to do with that.
We have tickets to a 7:00 show at Second City, just down the street. We make our way through the increasingly dense (and increasingly inebriated) crowd at the art fair and get there in time to get very good seats at a table on the center aisle with our general admission tickets. It is recommended that people arrive between 30 and 45 minutes before the show for good seats. There are reserved seats for ten dollars more, and I had tried to get those, but they were sold out for our performance. Tickets are a reasonable $23 plus service charge, and with a running time of about three hours, the price per minute is a great bargain. http://www.secondcity.com/
Second City shows two simultaneous productions in two theaters in the same building. We are seeing "Let Them Eat Chaos" in the older and larger of the two rooms. There are two acts of mostly scripted sketches lasting about an hour apiece, then a third act of improv, also lasting about an hour. The six members of the troupe really work for those three hours. I don't know about them, but I am getting pretty tired. Not too tired to laugh at the very funny sketches. One is a hilarious take on the paleo diet, set in a cafe where all the fare is "human products" starting with breast milk and moving on to much less appetizing concoctions, all provided by a harried employee. Well, now that I think of it, he couldn't have provided that first one, well, whatever.
By the time the show is over, I am really ready to call it a day. We have no trouble hailing a taxi outside the theater. The art fair down the street still appears to be in full swing, at least there are plenty of people in the street. I drop Susan off at her hotel, make it into mine, and manage to turn off the light after a couple of tries and get to sleep.
Jun 15th, 2013, 05:00 PM
#12
Original Poster
Monday morning Ellen, her husband, and I share a last breakfast at Wildberry and we say our good-byes. We will be traveling together to Scotland in August so will be seeing each other again soon. I walk down to Michigan Avenue and spend an hour exploring the Chicago Cultural Center. http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en...ralcenter.html
This building was the Chicago Public Library. It has now been refurbished and is used for exhibitions, concerts, theater, and various other cultural and educational activities, as well as private functions in its stunning spaces. It also houses the city's visitor information center. I don't believe I have ever darkened its doors before this morning.
A woman at the information desk hands me a guide to the building and tells me about its highlights. The entrance hallway and grand staircase are covered with fabulous mosaics. On the third floor is the largest Tiffany stained glass dome in the world, which was restored in 2008. The walls are covered in mosaics, including quotations from literature in many languages. On the second floor on the other side of the building is an even larger stained glass dome designed by Healy and Millet. I take many photos, and then I spend some time at an extremely interesting and touching exhibit of art by Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, two artists and designers who worked in Chicago throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
And now I am done. I can not cram one more activity into the weekend. I walk back to the hotel, pack my things, and take the GO shuttle that I have ordered back to O'Hare. I fall asleep on the shuttle. I fall asleep again on the plane. Like my college days, this weekend has been a time of heightened emotions and a whirlwind of activity. I am filled with gratitude for the friendships I have maintained for many decades. The people I shared those four years with have shaped the course of my life. I married the brother of one of the six college roommates who shared a house with me after we moved out of the dormitory where we all met. I have no brothers or sisters; this is my family.
I have seen some of those people this weekend, as well as others who meant so much to me. I have met new people from the message board to which I am addicted, and I got to do some new things in a new city with a friend from home whom I see frequently in a very different environment. My life is passing before my eyes. I think of the two men in front of me on that shuttle bus after the party Saturday night, and I can only hope that at our fiftieth reunion I am having the same discussion with my friends.
This building was the Chicago Public Library. It has now been refurbished and is used for exhibitions, concerts, theater, and various other cultural and educational activities, as well as private functions in its stunning spaces. It also houses the city's visitor information center. I don't believe I have ever darkened its doors before this morning.
A woman at the information desk hands me a guide to the building and tells me about its highlights. The entrance hallway and grand staircase are covered with fabulous mosaics. On the third floor is the largest Tiffany stained glass dome in the world, which was restored in 2008. The walls are covered in mosaics, including quotations from literature in many languages. On the second floor on the other side of the building is an even larger stained glass dome designed by Healy and Millet. I take many photos, and then I spend some time at an extremely interesting and touching exhibit of art by Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, two artists and designers who worked in Chicago throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
And now I am done. I can not cram one more activity into the weekend. I walk back to the hotel, pack my things, and take the GO shuttle that I have ordered back to O'Hare. I fall asleep on the shuttle. I fall asleep again on the plane. Like my college days, this weekend has been a time of heightened emotions and a whirlwind of activity. I am filled with gratitude for the friendships I have maintained for many decades. The people I shared those four years with have shaped the course of my life. I married the brother of one of the six college roommates who shared a house with me after we moved out of the dormitory where we all met. I have no brothers or sisters; this is my family.
I have seen some of those people this weekend, as well as others who meant so much to me. I have met new people from the message board to which I am addicted, and I got to do some new things in a new city with a friend from home whom I see frequently in a very different environment. My life is passing before my eyes. I think of the two men in front of me on that shuttle bus after the party Saturday night, and I can only hope that at our fiftieth reunion I am having the same discussion with my friends.
Jun 16th, 2013, 03:07 AM
#15
Nikki, great trip report!! Boy did you ever pack a lot into those days! I imagine it felt good to go "home" again for a few days (even if "home" was the college campus). Again, I'm glad to have met you in person even if it was only briefly at lunch on Saturday. Your pictures on the other thread were fabulous.
Jun 16th, 2013, 04:27 AM
#16
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Enjoyed your report and photos. I'm heading to Chicago in the fall. I saw that the Cave painting exhibit closes in early September, before I visit. Do you know which city it goes to next? I tried looking online without any luck?
Jun 16th, 2013, 05:47 AM
#18
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You certainly packed a lot into a little bit of time. Great report, I had no idea Milllineum Park is over a parking structure. Now I must read your Paris reports to get a little fix for my Paris addiction. Great to meet you in Chicago.
Ann Marie
Ann Marie
Jun 16th, 2013, 11:43 AM
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I parked near the Hyatt for $32 per 24 hours, a great rate for Chicago. My year old convertible suffered front end damage while parked there. Gonna cost a lot more that my $96 parking fee to have it fixed. 
Ann Marie
Ann Marie
