Falling in love with the Windy City

Chicago has stolen my heart this weekend. What a great city! I flew in on Friday for the end of year Fulbright conference. Luckily, there were no delays with flights this time and the whole thing was painless. It was an easy trip on the L to downtown, dropped off my bags in my fabulous hotel room (only a slight improvement on last week’s accommodation!) and then set out to see some of the city.

First stop: Anish Kapoor's 'Cloud Gate' (known affectionately as The Bean) for some fun with the camera.

Fascinating to walk round, through...

                                                             and look up!

Eventually I managed to tear myself away and head onwards and over the river, spotting a very inconspicuous Marilyn Monroe... 

I then cut back and followed the river walk round until I got to the Sears/ Willis Tower – the tallest structure in the Northern Hemisphere. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go to the top, so I joined the queue which thankfully they make as painless as possible by having various interesting facts displayed around the walls, my favourite of which was “It only took 3 years to build the Sears Tower (in the 1970s) whereas it took the Egyptians 20 years to build the pyramid”…two very comparable feats! We then got shepherded into a theatre to watch a short film which gave a brief history of Chicago. The original city was built of wood and was virtually completely destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of… Instead of abandoning the city, developers set about rebuilding and wow…what a city! It has continued to grow and has been at the forefront of architectural design. Finally, it was up in the lift to the 103^rd floor at ridiculous speed where I then joined the masses peering down on Chicago. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an outdoor observation deck but you could step out onto these completely encased glass ledges where all you had between you and the city below was a few inches of transparent glass. Not for those with vertigo!

By the time I returned to the hotel, it was time for dinner and it was great getting together with all the other Fulbrighters to compare stories and experiences. I don’t think we drew breath for hours…

We spent most of Saturday talking together about returning home and how to cope with not being special anymore. It was great to mix more with the Mexican, French, Hungarian and Czech teachers and hear their stories…some very interesting! All groups did presentations about their experiences which was fascinating. The prize for the best one went to the Hungarians and the Czech’s – watch this space for a link to the video if you fancy a chuckle. There was a lot of head nodding in agreement as we watched!

Fulbright kindly arranged an architectural boat trip along the river for us in the late afternoon so, bundled up against the wind (you really do see how it got its nickname), we sat up on deck and admired the views. The guide was a volunteer who spoke for 90 minutes almost non-stop. She was incredibly knowledgeable!

   

The black tower in the picture on the right is the Sears Tower. Apparently the design was conceived using cigarettes. The architects positioned them at different levels and imagined how it might work as a building.

 

Having braved the top deck for the whole time, we were then absolutely frozen and rather peckish so we hurried along to soak up some more Chicago culture…deep dish pizza (and beer) at Gino’s, a Chicago institution. It was incredibly good and lots more fun to hear about everyone’s adventures as we ate, laughed and stopped off to see the sights at night on our way back.

 

Sunday saw us finishing off our conference where they tried to prepare us for homecoming and reverse culture shock. I have to say I had a little tear in my eye as I thought properly about going home….but I’m not going to dwell on that now. Back to adventuring…

Team UK

Certificates awarded, I was free for another couple of hours before needing to head to the airport so I tramped up the Magnificent Mile, a shopping haven, and just had a quick pop in shops which don’t exist in Maine, then weaved my way back through the city looking for an ice cream place. No such luck, but I did stumble upon a couple more Chicago gems including the Picasso sculpture that I read about with my class in Picasso’s biography.

My final stop was the Art Institute of Chicago. WOW WOW WOW! It was AMAZING! It knocked the Philly art museum (and most I’ve ever been to) out of the water. The collection of art was truly incredible, I can’t gush enough. I fell in love with Matisse and oohed at Picasso, Calder, Klee, Giocometti, Magritte, Warhol, Pollock, O'Keefe…the list is endless.

The Art Institute is also home to Chagall's America windows

All in all I loved Chicago. A city of culture and skyscrapers.

On another note, this week I had a MAJOR car panic. The emergency engine light came on in the car when I pulled off the highway. That was enough to get me flapping and I was sooooo relieved to get home without anything bad happening. When I relayed this story to people, they all told me not to worry, it probably wasn’t anything major. Thankfully, they were right and Jeff, who I bought the car from, is ridiculously handy and seized my absence this weekend to check it out and fix it all up. Phew! There’s nothing like a bit of car trouble to remind me I’m absolutely useless. All’s well that ends well!