Having spent some time checking out the supermarkets, shoe shops and fast food places in suburban Illinois, we had a day to leave the 'burbs and head out into Chicago on the Northwest train that takes you into Oglivie Station. We were really lucky that it was such a sunny day. The city was at its best that way.
We headed for Willis tower (formerly Sears tower) first,
hoping to do the tourist thing of going up to the top and taking some photos but there was a super-long queue and right next to us serious construction work was going on and making a LOT of noise, which the architect felt he just couldn't bear, so we decided to head off to Millennium park instead.
I've been here before, but I still marvel at the skyscrapers, overhead 'L' tracks and the crazy reflective 'bean' in Millennium park.
The architect, with his brand new and groovy camera also marvelled at anything and everything around us. It's his first time in the States, so he was lapping it all up and finding it all rather a lot to take in.
While walking around Millennium park we got a taste of American parenting as a little kid who could not have been more than 4 years old, kept running ahead when his parents and older sister told him to wait. The little tyke even stopped, turned to face his parents and said, "I can do whatever I want." To which his parents just giggled and tried to persuade him to be more careful. I would have given him hell. What an ego! If the kid thinks that at 4, what will he be like at 18? God help that family. The architect said he would have been yelled at and pulled into line bigtime if he'd said that to his parents when he was a kid.
We continued on our way through the park and decided to aim for Navy Pier,
and in resolute, totally un-American style, we walked all the way. And it was a long way, believe me, and not paved with easy access either, but we got there and rewarded ourselves with huge Haagen Dazs ice creams. Something called 'Rocky Road' had bits of Oreo cookies in it and chocolate ice cream with caramel topping. Mmmm.
And that was our day, because then we had to walk all the way back (and on the walk back we saw this...)
(and this...)
(and this...)
(and this...)
(and this...)
to catch the 6.30pm train, because there isn't a 7.30pm one (for some unfathomable reason) so we would have had to wait until 8.30pm otherwise and that would have got us back to the suburb of Crystal Lake at about 10pm. That just felt too late somehow. I still think it's amazing how long it takes to get from Crystal Lake to downtown Chicago. It's like travelling from Bath to London in the UK except the Illinois train stops at loads of places on the way (hence why it takes so long) and therefore goes comparatively slowly. There's something about that slow progress that frustrates me and makes me feel like the suburbs are a nasty trap in the middle of nowhere. But I must admit, it's easier for travelling west, which is what we did next of course.
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