It has become my favourite "big" city in the US so far. Its beautiful architecture, nice people, clean downtown area are the things that sets it apart from the others we've seen on this trip. If you're a sports fan, the city's teams are some of the most recognisable: Bulls (NBA), Bears (NFL), Blackhawks (NHL), Cubs and Whitesocks (MLB). Chicago has truly been spoiled with major sports teams.
As one of our tour guides has said, Chicago doesn't do mediocre. Whatever it is, it has to be the biggest, largest, fastest, most extreme. Don't like the pollution of the river flowing into lake Michigan and messing with your drinking water? The normal solution would be to stop polluting the river. Not Chicago. Chicago will REVERSE the flow of the river and instead make it flow to St Louis, along with all the crap in it.
Chicago was for a long time home to the World's Tallest Building, the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower but most people still call it by what seems its rightful name. We went up there, photos below.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which burned down the entire city presented an opportunity to start fresh. It gave people a chance to plan the city the way they wanted it to look, buildings were now made of stone rather than wood.
Photos from the top of the Sears Tower. They have a glass ledge too that you can step on :)
Photos from our tour around Chicago, starting with some guy hanging off the building to clean the windows.
Soldier Field below, as seen from the entrance of the Field Museum. We visited the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry and Navy Pier.
St Martin - the story is a very familiar one, every kid in Germany knows it as Germans have a special St Martin's Day in November where in the evening they first march behind a Roman soldier on a horse through the streets until they reach an open space where a large fire is lit. Children used to then light their lanterns on that fire (these days the lanterns are electric of course) and proceed to go around from house to house with lanterns, singing folk songs about St Martin and getting candy in return. Though I have never heard that the beggar was supposed to be Jesus?? That's new to me.
Martinszug:
Aaaaanyway. Onto other photos.
Field Museum. I didn't take many photos here, Simone has more on her blog.
Museum of Science and Industry. They had a special Charles M Schulz exhibit going. This museum was really neat, and puts to shame Perth's Scitec.
I got tickets for the season opener for the Chicago Bulls, and on wednesday we made our way to the United Center. This was definitely a highlight for me, my first live NBA game!
The retired jersey numbers of Bulls legends.
Cameras are put up.
Reporters getting ready.
Highlights are displayed.
Mascot floating around.
Warm up.
Joakim Noah, one of the stars of the Bulls. Son of Yannick Noah, the tennis player. And Simone's favourite :)
The awesome intro. I couldn't find a video from this game, so I chose one from last year. The lineup is unchanged, except Rose is injured and missing.
They have no restrictions on camera equipment, so I was able to bring the big lens. Not that I needed it, the seats were very close to the court, only 8 rows up.
Timeout performance.
Tshirt gun and cheer leaders.
It was a great game, and the Bulls won 93:87.
Photos from our architectural river cruise.
And last but not least, photos from some of the food we've eaten in Chicago!
Garrett's Popcorn. The caramel popcorn is amazing, the cheese we can both live without.
Standard Chicago pizza. On a day to day basis, I would prefer this to the deep dish. Deep dish you can only have sparingly I think.
One day we went to lunch at Hot Doug's. Anthony Bourdain was here amongst other food reviewers. The verdict: tasty and very affordable. The standard Chicago style hot doug with all trimmings costs you a whopping $2. Yes, two bucks. The special ones are around $7-$8,but all the ones on the standard menu are no dearer than $3.50. Awesome! And the fries are seriously some of the best I've eaten, even without being fried in duck fat, which they do only fridays and saturdays.
On the right is the Chicago style hot dog for $2. Another bonus: all prices displayed in this shop include tax. So what you see is what you pay, like it should be!
We got here early to avoid the lunch rush, by the time we left the queue was out the door.
Some pork tacos before the Bulls game. Tasty and fresh!
I managed to swing a booking for The Girl & The Goat, which is currently one of THE places to eat in Chicago. Food is served tapas style, so you order several smaller dishes and share. We left full and satisfied. Some dishes had parts that we didn't like, but overall a very satisfying meal. And the first time I tried pig face and beef tongue!
I also put up a pic from the net, cause mine doesn't show too much apart from the egg.
Tempura trout fillet with bacon sweet & sour and tuna crema
Sauteed shrimp with peanut-pork ragu, spaghetti squash and grape tomato. Simone's favourite.
Crisp braised pork shank with butternut squash, shiitake kimchee, buttermilk dressing and naan
Sauteed green beans with fish sauce vinaigrette and cashews
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