Ode to Chicago

 We have our first rain of the fall in SJC (it’s a bit early, I think), the baby is sleeping and I woke up from parallel napping thinking about Chicago.  I read a quote on the internet about how Chicago is just a northern outpost of Mississippi, it’s been shaped so much by the great migration.  I never in a million years thought I’d ever even entertain the thought of moving back, but since our summer visit, that thought has crept in (rest assured, I’m 98% sure that it will never be acted upon.  I can never forget the dirt and misery of the winter).  But what a great city, that place.  Granted, we visited during unusually cool and beautiful weather, but it allowed us to walk around the city not feeling miserable and enjoy the hustle and bustle of downtown.

We stayed in the Hotel Palomar our first night, which has complimentary animal print robes!  As the sun went down, it rained and we camped out in front of the window, looking at the city in awe like some sort of rural rubes.  (Theo slept in the bathtub, because hotel rooms with babies are hard--they go to bed so early!)

 

We went to the pinnacles of civic life—museums (the art institute and the field museum).  The biggest difference we noticed was the entire rerouting of Lake Shore Drive to make it easy to walk between all of the museums (previously this was not possible—you had to get on LSD in order to go from one place to another).  

We ate pizza at Pizzeria Due (and were disappointed to realize that Chicago style pizza in the bay area is now superior to its progenitor).  Look at the building right across the street!  It's so beautiful and is now a Macy's?

We visited Millennium Park (which was completed after we left, so new to us) and saw the bean, lots of hot dog stands and the amazing pig sculptures by Jun Kaneko (who also designed the Magic Flute set at the SF opera we saw last year.  SYNERGY).  Natan spent lot of time at the Marc Chagall mosaic in the First National Bank Plaza.  

We talked about how many people were out and about just living in their city—eating, playing, visiting--a model of urban life that is rare in the US, but common in Europe.  It reminded us of our favorite city ever (of course that is Vienna) and made us want to visit again, soon!*

 CHICAGO 4EVA.

*this post completely ignores the gang wars, poverty, atrocious racial history, recent school closings, Rahm Emanuel, the legacy of the Daleys and all other human impacts on those actually living in Chicago and is purely from the perspective of a privileged white vacationer.