How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Chicago

Day 2
We slept in! Which is fine because we weren’t really in much of a hurry for anything. Our bus tour got cancelled which is kind of a bummer, but really it just made things feel a lot more relaxed. Instead we decided to hit the John Hancock (add a letter and that is one very funny name) building and view 80 miles of Chicagoland. You go up in an elevator traveling 20 miles an hour! I had images of being shot out the roof of the building a la Bugs Bunny or something but no such luck. The view was awesome, for the most part. If I were running the Hancock (teehee) viewing place I would put an announcement over the PA that sounded like the following..

“Ladies and gentleman, thank you for coming to the Hancock (teehee) observatory. As you look out the windows you will feel as though you need to clean your glasses, DO NOT do that as it is just the seriously messed up level of pollution in our beautiful city, which we assure you is there if you just squint really hard and look. Enjoy the views of Lake Michigan (that’s the blue-gray part) and the city (the gray-gray part)!”



Seriously though, the view is incredible. The air quality is just bad because of the crazy heat here. It is dang hot, thank the Lord for air-conditioning.

While at Hancock we bought our trusty Chicago Citypasses which are awesome, they get us into all kinds of stuff, and some souvenirs for folks back home. After that we headed over to the Fourth Presbyterian Church, named for the little known Galilean disciple of Timothy, Fourth the Third Jr. Actually it is called that because, according to a highly informative plaque, it was the fourth Presbyterian church in Chicago, which makes it a) old and b) boringly named. Good thing the building more than makes up for the lackluster moniker. It was totally amazing! In fact, I have noticed that there are a lot of truly incredible churches that dot the landscape here. Makes me wish we had someone to take us around to see some of these places. Fourth is awesome though, I believe we are going to hit the service there before heading to the House of Blues for the Gospel brunch there (eat your heart out Matt!). Anyhoo, this church is over a hundred years old, the architecture is incredible, and it just oozes peace and meditative atmosphere. The 600 pipe organ was amazing to behold, as were the bapstimal font, the chancel area, and the pulpit (man did I want to get up in there). The courtyard and surrounding building were truly incredible and real feat of engineering because when you are in there the city just fades away, it is just the coolest thing…



We walked down Michigan a ways to go to a store we had seen the night before on our buggy ride…



That’s right, the Hershey Store! Good eats there (obviously) and good souvenirs. It felt pretty touristy but I had fun anyway. It’s chocolate for crying out loud! I ate a cupcake that may have singelhandedly made me a diabetic.



Next, Navy Pier. Here is my summation of Navy Peir. Granville Island with a Ferris Wheel. There it is. I wasn’t really blown away by it. A lot of schilling of boat tours and Chinese acrobats (you don’t get to buy them, you get to watch them, you sick puppy… I checked.)



However, we did find something cool that Candace had been looking for since Kari posted a pic on her blog.



Dippin Dots. This is a summation of eating them… “AAAAH AAAH THEY BURN, hey strawberry.” They were good, very fresh flavor really. I also got to try my first Chicago Dog, which was really really good, we haven’t got anything even close in Canada (there goes another food)



We walked to the end and caught the free trolley, which should have been called the free pre-heated in the seventh level of hell trolley. Man, that was a trip, we just rode it around from beginning to end and got off hoping to hit the Art Institute at some point. It was at that point that my inner compass struck (yup) and we decided to try and walk it. I probably should have listened to the guy that said, “wow, that is like three miles.” To which I immediately thought, “What do you know, you are from Chicago!” And then we walked. We found the NBC building, which was creepy. This is a functional TV station which films many shows (Jerry Springer anyone?) and yet there were two people there who looked as though they may have gotten trapped in the queues. I wasn’t sure whether we should escape or get them some food. After walking through there we resigned ourselves to heading back to the hotel and found one of the coolest surprises.

The Freedom Museum is on Michigan Avenue, a little past the Mag Mile. For 5 bucks (!) you get to go through a high tech museum that debates the true nature of freedom. It was a truly interesting experience and gave me an appreciation for the American view of freedom. Even more interesting was the underlying boldness in the idea that the American way of freedom is likely the best way… which I am not sure I agree with obviously. It was just a little odd to be doing these little Was-this-an-infringement-on-American-freedom exercises and having examples from a large number of other countries. Right or wrong I am not subject to your notion of freedom as a Canadian. Got me thinking in some interesting ways though for sure. Big thumbs up for that one.

We walked all the way back to the Hotel (I seem to have found a way to make my feet handle the walking, I added some extra padding that is working for now, today felt pretty rough though, my legs didn’t want to walk. But boy did they (more on that later). We had a nice supper at Mrs. Parks (the hotel restaurant) that was pretty good. I say pretty good only because Candace’stir fry was a little odd (it tasted like curry). I had this awesome Cajun pasta with Andouille sausage and jumbo shrimp. We finished that off with some truly tasty coconut and raspberry sorbet (which wants me to break into a Prince song, Raspberry Sorbet! I think I looooove you.)

After that we went back to the hotel and crashed for an early start on day 3… a day of walking and walking and walking and a slightly looney Aquarium worker who was determined to show us just how nice she really was. So that’s day 2… day 3 will come but internet costs a bit at the hotel so I am not sure when I will update next. Maybe tomorrow night… till then…adieu…