Art Institute of Chicago
For
me, the entire purpose of visiting Chicago was to see the Art Institute.
This museum has one of the largest collections of Impressionist art in
the world. Sally and I arrived in Chicago Thursday afternoon. By the time
we arrived at our hotel, we thought it would be too late to visit the
Museum, but and we decided to explore the city. The museum was extremely
close to our hotel and we arrived there, to learn that on Thursday night,
it was open late. We headed straight to the Impressionist galleries. The
Impressionist collection was amazing. They not only had an incredible
number of paintings, but the quality of the paintings was amazing. There
was one room that had 15 paintings by Monet in it. Seurat's famous A
Sunday on La Grande Jatte is at the institute as well as Caillibotte's
Paris Street: Rainy Day, two very famous paintings. It was truly
a treat to see the Museum at this time; it was very uncrowded and we enjoyed
the paintings largely privately.
The next morning Sally and I went back to the museum to see what we had missed and to take another look at the paintings we had already seen. The museum's collection is impressive; Hooper's Nighthawks, Wood's American Gothic, Hokusai's The Great Wave, El Greco's The Assumption of the Virgin, the list just goes on. I could have spent all my time here. We spent hours at the museum and didn't see everything, but that's fine; that translates to another trip to the Institute in the future.
Millennium Park
After
visiting the Art Institute on Thursday, Sally and I walked to a pizza
parlor near our hotel. Along the way we passed Millennium Park. The first
thing we saw in the park was the Crown Fountain, which consists of two
50-foot glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. On
one side of each rectangle were colored lights and the other displayed
a picture. The next day we went back to the park. Another work of art
is Cloud Gate, a 110-ton elliptical sculpture designed by British artist
Anish Kapoor. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion concert arena at the park was
designed by Frank Gehry. The BP Bridge connects the park to the Daley
Bicentennial Plaza.
Michigan Avenue
On
Friday, after going to Millennium Park, Sally and I decided to walk up
Michigan Avenue. Chicago is famous for its Art Nouveau architecture and
there are a number of fine examples along Michigan avenue. Some of the
more interesting building are the Chicago Tribune, the Wrigley building
(built by the chewing gum king), the Water Tower and the Hancock Tower.
It was a beautiful day. Sally and I stopped and had a drink at an outdoor
cafe and later had a magnificent steak at Morton's, which has been an
institution in Chicago for many decades now.
The Hancock Tower
The
Sears Tower in Chicago is the tallest building in the US, but Sally and
I decided to go up to the top of the Hancock Tower instead. While not
as high as the Sears Tower, the Hancock Tower is less crowded, meaning
we only had to wait 45 minutes instead of 2 hours. The view of the shoreline
is terrific.
The Field Museum
My
main interest in Chicago was the Art Institute. We saw the Institute on
both Thursday and Friday, so I told Sally that we could do anything she
wanted to do on Saturday. Sally wanted to see both the Field Museum (the
dinosaur museum) and the Shedd Aquarium. Our first stop was the Field
Museum, considered to be one of the premier dead animal museums in the
world. When you first enter the museum, you are greeted by a very large
skeleton of a T-Rex. Very impressive. The museum has an impressive amount
of fossils from a wide range of periods.
Shedd Aquarium
The
Shedd Aquarium had a special Komodo Dragon exhibition. They had a huge
Komodo Dragon display in front of the Aquarium that was used to shield
the people in line from the sun. Everyone in line seemed to like they
way they had it set up. Once Sally and I got inside we found that there
was another very long line to see the Komodo Dragons. Much as Sally likes
Komodo Dragons, she likes dolphins and penguins more, so we saw those
instead. Sally was complaining that the movie "The Freshman"
ruined Komodo Dragon references for her forever.
Our Hotel
Sally
and I stayed at the Palmer House, which was just a couple of blocks from
the Art Institute. Both Sally and I really liked the hotel. Our room was
very nice and we had no complaints
The Airport
Sally
and I had an early flight on Sunday morning. We arranged to have a van
pick us up at our hotel and take us to the airport. Cabs and vans are
rather expensive in Chicago. While we were waiting for the van to come
we started talking to a pilot who was waiting for his van to arrive. A
van arrived, but it wasn't ours; it was picking up the pilot we were talking
with. It was already past time to catch our van and the pilot's van driver
said that if we slipped him a couple of bucks he would take us to the
airport. We got a cheap ride to the airport and arrived in plenty of time.
We got through the security check without any problem but were told that
we would get our seating assignment at the gate. When we got to the gate
there wasn't anyone there so we waited. Sally was rather annoyed; she
hates festival seating. Eventually some airline personnel arrived. I got
in line and waited and waited. After quite a long time they announced
that anyone who was waiting in line for a seating assignment should get
out of line and that they would call us as we got our seats. Time passed.
Then they announced that they were boarding first class passengers- we
still didn't have seats. Then they started boarding the first zone. I
tried to talk to the airline people and they told me to go away. They
boarded the second zone and then the third zone. I tried talking to them
again and they told me to go away, but first told me that they had overbooked
so there was a good possibility that we would have to take another flight.
Finally, they had boarded all of the passengers and I talked to them again.
I was upset because it was very likely we got bumped and if we didn't
get bumped Sally and I would have to sit apart. This time we got seats,
but they weren't together, or a least that's what I thought at first because
they didn't have consecutive numbers. It turned coach was overbooked,
but not business class so we got to fly home in business class. You can
see how happy Sally was in this photo.