The kid was on school vacation this past week, so we decided to spend a few days in Chicago. After CL saw this marquis, he's seriously considering a return trip in May for Elvis Costello and Paul Simon. Unless they are also playing Milwaukee ...
Here we are waiting for the vallet to bring the car around to the hotel entrance. We stayed at The Silversmith Hotel, which is right downtown and within walking distance of almost everything we wanted to do and see ...
We had a very good and reasonably priced lunch here at The Pittsfield Cafe -- just walked in and sat down, no waiting. CL had a pastrami sandwhich (see below). Although I've heard of these, I've never seen one up close, much less tasted one until this day. Pretty good! The beef brisket was nice and tender and went well with the rye bread.
Oliver wanted to go to The Lego Store on Michigan Ave.
I still love Star Wars, and Lego had plenty of it!
My main objective in Chicago-land was to make a pilgrimage to Dick Blick : 2 floors of art supplies! So much potential! So many possibilities in all those raw materials!
I got a set of Inktense water color pencils. I've heard so much about them from some of my blogging friends, that I really wanted to give them a try.
A picnic dinner from Trader Joe's seems to have become a tradition on these Chicago adventures. The wait-times at so many of the restaurants in the evening is too long to endure if you've got a kid along. So a little baguette, some prosciutto, a good goat cheese, and a little hummus is just enough in the evening. And then there's some left for breakfast, too!
We walked around the Loop area. I liked how the glass on this building reflected the trees across the street.
We also went to The Shedd Aquarium. I really wanted to spend some time with the Belugas, but alas, they were not on display other than a brief stint in the show. We did not attend the show, but stayed below and caught a brief glimpse of these gentle giants here :
The Shedd was really noisy and crawling with screaming kids that day. Somehow, I had not considered that. The last time I was at the Shedd was a few years ago for a conference, in the evening. It was all adults. We had a very elegant dinner around the Caribbean Reef, with a guy in the tank telling us about Nickel the sea turtle who lived there and her rescue story. Then we had a few hours to roam the Shedd. I hung out by the Beluga tank and just watched them for most of that time. It was a wonderful and restorative experience for me. Not this time ... The Shedd offers a regular Jazz evening (Tuesdays?) for adults only. I'm sure that would have been more up my alley, but then we had a 10-year old with us ...
Here are some pictures from the Shedd :
The best part of the trip for me was getting to see my old friend Chris Corcoran. I've known her since my African Lit & Lang days at UW-Madison (almost 20 years!). She was in Nigeria with me the summer of 1993 (What a summer that was!) I spent many a Saturday night at her lakeside apartment in Madison eating great food, watching foreign films, and discussing the great issues of the day. She is a wonderful storyteller. I don't think I would have made it through that period without her! She even took me to Vogue Fabrics that first time when I bought the linen for my wedding dress. She still has that wonderful curly hair. It was wonderful to see her again! As you can see from the picture, we laugh as much as we ever did together!
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