Travel With Betsy

…..through loving eyes……

I have been to Chicago at least a dozen times.

United Healthcare, one of my former employers had an office in Chicago. It was a central location for the division I worked for, so we met there often for important corporate meetings.  I was in and out of the city every few months.  I will admit that much of my time there was spent looking at the city through the window of a conference room on the top floor of an office building. One or two of my visits, however, included a fun swing through the city. I thought that I had seen most of the important things. So, when my friends, Christine and Bob, invited me to spend a few days with them in Chicago in July, I wasn’t sure.

What else could I possibly see?

But, the two of them are a lot of fun, and it had been quite a few years since I had been there. So, I took them up on their offer.

I was glad I did.

After the first day, I recognized that I hadn’t really seen all that much of the city. Or, if I had, I didn’t remember a great deal of it. I also realized that there is no better way to see a city than through the eyes of people who had lived there and loved it.   I got a good taste of the city that everyone knows. But, I also got to take a journey down memory lane with my friends. What a treat to see their favorite haunts, hear their fun stories, and meet the people who had made Chicago home for them. It was a remarkable insight into their city….and them.

I loved both!

On my first night in the city, we attended a free outdoor concert at the Museum of Contemporary Art and later had a wonderful dinner in their new restaurant. The jazz singer of the evening was one of Christine’s favorite local performers. As we sipped on a glass of wine and listened to the smooth tones of the singer, Christine pointed out a condo building on the edge of the concert space. It was one of the places they had lived years ago. I could feel her love as she talked about listening to the concerts from her balcony.

After dinner, I got a “midnight” tour of the area around the museum. What a great way to start my visit!

We covered a lot of ground in the few days we had together. The architectural tour of the city by boat

was definitely one of the highlights. Chicago is the home of spectacular building design. I was amazed at the uniqueness the buildings.

Different as they were, though, they fit together perfectly to form a most interesting and well thought out skyline.

As we floated along, we were both informed and amused by our commentator……

……who had lots to share on all aspects of the city.

Each day as the three of us walked along, we talked about the “inland” architecture. There was a lot of old against new as we looked at the old Art Deco structures against the more modern style of the newer buildings such as the Aqua Tower with its wavy façade, our home for this visit.

The historic Tribune building also had artifacts from all over the world imbedded in its exterior walls…..149 in total.

A trip to Chicago would not be complete without a shopping extravaganza! While I enjoyed looking at the goods offered in the stores, I enjoyed looking at the old buildings just as much. The Bloomingdale’s Home Store was in an old historic building that still had the original stained glass windows. They were beautiful, as was the ornate ceiling that I could see from the railing of every floor in the building.

The old Marshall Field’s building is now Macy’s. It is another of the architectural wonders of the city. From my previous visits to Chicago, I remembered the building itself and the grand escalator in the open square in the center of the building.

Here, in addition to shopping, we also visited the “Walnut Room”, an elegant restaurant that brought back some fun childhood memories for Christine.

Chicago is divided up into over 200 “neighborhoods”. Each “neighborhood” has a lot of “green space” some in the form of parks. This was part of the plan for Chicago. The developer wanted to be sure that the people who lived in the city would have access to the outdoors. We visited several of these neighborhoods and some of their parks to include Greek town, Little Italy, Old Town, Streeterville, and Lincoln Park. Each had its own unique flavor.

My favorite of the parks by far was Millenium Park.

This is also one of Bob’s favorites. He and I spent a morning looking at the highlights there. We were mesmerized and amused by our crazy reflections on the surface of the touristy “Bean” sculpture.

We were also intrigued by the reflections of others….

…..especially this small group of teens that were having a photo shoot in preparation for a “Cotillion”….a coming out celebration for 15 year old girls.

I got the scoop on this from these four boys.

One of them had a crush on the girl in red. I did a little match making. I hope it works out for them.

Even better than the “Bean” was the Crown Fountain,

designed by Spanish sculptor James Plensa. There are two fifty-foot towers that are each a base supporting a cascading waterfall. The two facing towers are anchors for a shallow pool in between. The faces of 1,000 Chicagoans are sequentially projected onto the surface of the towers.

Every few minutes, the mouth of the projected face opens and a stream of water flows out.

We watched the absolute unbridled joy of children of all ages as they splashed through the water, racing from side to side to catch the flow of gushing water.

We saw the musical, “Hamilton”, which we all loved and will all likely see again should we get the chance.

As you may know, it was a clever and thought provoking biography of the life of Alexander Hamilton in the form of “hip hop”.   I don’t have a great understanding or interest in this style of music. In fact, I have argued in the past that it really isn’t music. It’s not melodic. But, it is rhythmic, and the beat kept us engaged in the story of this lesser known “founding father”.

There was, of course, lots of good food at some of the many wonderful restaurants in Chicago as well as at the home of some of Christine and Bob’s friends.

What a delight to learn about the friendships that were formed here many years ago and are still going strong. There is an unbreakable bond between friends who have known each other for the better part of a lifetime. It was evident here.

Almost everything we did elicited a memory for either Bob or Christine and sometimes both of them together. The city came alive as we toured and talked about their experiences. I wondered what it would be like to have lived in a place that I loved this much.  I can’t say that I have ever felt this strongly about a place. So, the jury’s out on that for me.  What I can say is that I will be coming back to Chicago.

I’m already thinking about my next visit.

This entry was posted on December 20, 2018 at 3:22 am and is filed under Group Travel, North America, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.